ESA: StarTiger secures way to eclipse Sun in space

Find out the latest thinking about our universe.
Post Reply
User avatar
bystander
Apathetic Retiree
Posts: 21571
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:06 pm
Location: Oklahoma

ESA: StarTiger secures way to eclipse Sun in space

Post by bystander » Thu Apr 29, 2010 2:50 pm

StarTiger secures way to eclipse Sun in space
ESA Portal - 27 April 2010
Last September a team of researchers assembled in southern France. Their six month assignment: develop a new type of space mission, targeting a mysterious segment of the Sun normally hidden in plain sight.

Today the results of their race against the clock have been unveiled.
...
The prototype demonstrates a way to produce a perpetual eclipse in space: fly two satellites in tight formation so that one casts a continuous shadow across the other.
...
The two satellites will fly 150 m apart, the first hosting a ‘coronagraph’ instrument while the second, ‘occulter’, casts a shadow across it with a maximum positioning error of a few millimetres. Photosensors around the coronagraph will monitor the shadow’s position while an LED array on the occulter allows optical tracking from the observer satellite.
...
The StarTiger coronagraph would perform spectral as well as spatial coronal monitoring, incorporating an innovative liquid-crystal-based spectrometer design and a ‘smart’ active pixel sensor (APS) detector covering the very wide dynamic range of coronal light levels. As part of the project’s secondary objectives, both elements were also prototyped.
...
StarTiger, stands for Space Technology Advancements by Resourceful, Targeted and Innovative Groups of Experts and Researchers
...
The pilot StarTiger project in 2002 resulted in a new teraHertz imager design which has since been spun-off into airport security. ESA plans up to two StarTiger projects per year over the next three years.
ESA’s Tigers on prowl for solar corona’s secrets
ESA Portal - 11 Dec 2009
Bring together a small group of highly motivated researchers, grant them full access to laboratory and production facilities, remove all administrative distractions, and let them work intensively for four to six months. That’s what ‘StarTiger’ is all about!

It is a different approach to conducting research and development that aims to demonstrate the feasibility of a new and promising technology within a very short time scale.

Within this initiative, ESA is running a six-month crash effort to design an instrument to operate between a pair of satellites flying in formation. One will cast a precisely-controlled shadow across the other to produce a perpetual solar eclipse, revealing parts of the Sun’s corona usually hidden in sunlight.

ESA's latest StarTiger project is to create a complete working model of such a ‘giant external coronagraph’. The effort began on 15 September, with a core team of seven multidisciplinary experts from France, Belgium, Greece and Italy based at the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM) in France, plus a 20-strong support team. Project hardware is being designed and manufactured, with testing due to begin early next year.

Post Reply