Imagine a spacecraft made up of individual units, launched separately over time, that navigate to each other autonomously and assemble into a powerful space telescope. That is exactly what a team of researchers at Cornell University envisions as they work on a feasibility study commissioned by NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program.
Led by Dmitry Savransky, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell, the team of 15 scientists from across the U.S. is studying the possibility of building a space telescope that can see farther and in more detail using small, inexpensive components that self-assemble in orbit.
Savransky’s proposal involves programming thousands of individual hexagon-shaped modules, each 1 meter across and topped with an adjustable edge-to-edge mirror assembly. These components would assemble into a telescope with a primary and secondary mirror, support structure and sun shield.
The components would be launched as “payloads of opportunity” on existing scheduled rocket launches. Once in space, they would navigate to their destination using a deployable solar sail that would double as a sun shield during telescope assembly. Their destination is known as the second Lagrangian point—a location in space where the gravities of the Earth and sun maintain an equilibrium. The swarm of components would then organize themselves and assemble autonomously, with no additional human or robotic intervention.
“As autonomous spacecraft become more common, and as we continue to improve how we build very small spacecraft, it makes a lot of sense,” said Mason Peck, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell and former chief technology officer at NASA.
If the researchers can prove the feasibility of creating a large telescope from small pieces, it could make the efficient and affordable construction of large space telescopes a reality. This is not feasible with existing design and assembly techniques used to create previous generations of telescopes, such as Hubble and James Webb, which have mirrors that measure 2.4 meters and 6.5 meters respectively. The mirror of Savransky’s proposed satellite would measure over 30 meters.
A telescope of that size could change how space is explored.
“We’ll be able to afford to see farther and better than ever,” Peck said.
Read more about cutting-edge telescope technology at Boeing Engineers Lend Simulation Smarts to Giant Magellan Telescope.