The Big Occulting Steerable Satellite (BOSS)

Author

Copi, C.J. ; Starkman, G.D. ; Lichodziejewski, L.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Phys., Case Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, OH

Volume

7

fYear

2000

fDate

2000

Firstpage

403

Abstract

The Big Occulting Steerable Satellite (BOSS) is a concept for a mission to improve the high contrast and high resolution capabilities of the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST). The objective of BOSS is to facilitate the separation of dim objects (such as planets) from nearby bright objects (such as stars) by occulting the bright source, and to improve the resolution of closely spaced objects of comparable brightness (e.g., binary stars, microlensing events, etc.) by slowly transiting the source. The authors describe the current design of the BOSS, its optical performance: and the outstanding technical issues. They show how NGST in conjunction with BOSS could detect Earth-like planets out to at least 5 pc, and Jovian planets well beyond 10 pc

Keywords

astronomical instruments; astronomical telescopes; extrasolar planets; BOSS; Big Occulting Steerable Satellite; NGST; Next Generation Space Telescope; astronomical telescope; binary star; dim object; extrasolar planet; high contrast; high resolution; microlensing event; optical performance; Brightness; Lenses; Low earth orbit satellites; Optical design; Optical refraction; Physics; Planets; Space missions; Sun; Telescopes;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Aerospace Conference Proceedings, 2000 IEEE

Conference_Location

Big Sky, MT

ISSN

1095-323X

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5846-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/AERO.2000.879306

Filename

879306