Optical characterization of the Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE) CubeSat

Arika Egan; Kevin France; Brian T. Fleming; Nicholas DeCicco; Stefan Ulrich; Nicholas Nell; Dmitry Vorobiev; Richard Kohnert; Ambily Suresh

doi:10.1117/12.2559983

13 December 2020 Optical characterization of the Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE) CubeSat

Arika Egan, Kevin France, Brian T. Fleming, Nicholas DeCicco, Stefan Ulrich, Nicholas Nell, Dmitry Vorobiev, Richard Kohnert, Ambily Suresh

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 11444, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2020: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray; 1144406 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2559983
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2020, Online Only

Abstract

The Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE) is a 6U CubeSat designed to explore the upper atmospheres of short-period exoplanets via near-ultraviolet (2500 – 3300 Å) transmission spectroscopy, with an anticipated launch date of September 2021. The 4U science instrument comprises a Cassegrain telescope with a 20 × 8 cm primary mirror, a spectrograph, and a thermal-electrically cooled CCD detector. The spacecraft structure and a 1.5U XB1 avionics module are provided by Blue Canyon Technologies. CUTE’s novel and compact instrument design presents unique challenges to conducting component-level testing, alignment, instrument and spacecraft integration, calibration, and end-to-end performance testing. We provide a description of several custom test setups and procedures designed to characterize the spectrograph performance and its expected science return. We also outline the remainder of our integration and testing plan.

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Arika Egan, Kevin France, Brian T. Fleming, Nicholas DeCicco, Stefan Ulrich, Nicholas Nell, Dmitry Vorobiev, Richard Kohnert, and Ambily Suresh "Optical characterization of the Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE) CubeSat", Proc. SPIE 11444, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2020: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 1144406 (13 December 2020); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2559983

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