Optical testing activities for the SPICA telescope

Hidehiro Kaneda; Takao Nakagawa; Keigo Enya; Yoshio Tange; Tadashi Imai; Haruyoshi Katayama; Masahiro Suganuma; Masataka Naitoh; Kenta Maruyama; Takashi Onaka; Yuichi Kiriyama; Tatsuya Mori; Ai Takahashi

doi:10.1117/12.856927

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5 August 2010 Optical testing activities for the SPICA telescope

Hidehiro Kaneda, Takao Nakagawa, Keigo Enya, Yoshio Tange, Tadashi Imai, Haruyoshi Katayama, Masahiro Suganuma, Masataka Naitoh, Kenta Maruyama, Takashi Onaka, Yuichi Kiriyama, Tatsuya Mori, Ai Takahashi

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Proceedings Volume 7731, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2010: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave; 77310V (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.856927
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2010, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

SPICA (Space Infrared Telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics) is a Japan-led infrared astronomical satellite project with a 3-m-class telescope in collaboration with Europe. The telescope is cooled down to temperature below 6 K in space by a combination of mechanical coolers with radiative cooling in space. The telescope has requirements for its total weight to be lighter than 700 kg and for the imaging performance to be diffraction-limited at 5 μm at 6 K. The mirrors will be made of silicon carbide (SiC) or its related material, which has large heritages of the AKARI and Herschel telescopes. The design of the telescope system has been studied by the Europe-Japan telescope working group led by ESA with European industries to meet the requirements. As for optical testing, responsibilities will be split between Europe and Japan so that final optical verification at temperatures below 10 K will be executed in Japan. We present our recent optical testing activities in Japan for the SPICA telescope, which include the numerical and experimental studies of stitching interferometry as well as modifications of the 6-m-diameter radiometer space chamber facility at Tsukuba Space Center in JAXA. We also show results of cryogenic optical testing of the 160-mm and 800-mm lightweight mirrors made of a C/SiC material called HBCesic, which is a candidate mirror material for the SPICA telescope.

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Hidehiro Kaneda, Takao Nakagawa, Keigo Enya, Yoshio Tange, Tadashi Imai, Haruyoshi Katayama, Masahiro Suganuma, Masataka Naitoh, Kenta Maruyama, Takashi Onaka, Yuichi Kiriyama, Tatsuya Mori, and Ai Takahashi "Optical testing activities for the SPICA telescope", Proc. SPIE 7731, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2010: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave, 77310V (5 August 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.856927

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