Lennart Lindegren
Professor
Gaia : Focus, straylight and basic angle
Author
Summary, in English
The Gaia all-sky astrometric survey is challenged by several issues affecting the spacecraft stability. Amongst them, we find the focus evolution, straylight and basic angle variations Contrary to pre-launch expectations, the image quality is continuously evolving, during commissioning and the nominal mission. Payload decontaminations and wavefront sensor assisted refocuses have been carried out to recover optimum performance. An ESA-Airbus DS working group analysed the straylight and basic angle issues and worked on a detailed root cause analysis. In parallel, the Gaia scientists have also analysed the data, most notably comparing the BAM signal to global astrometric solutions, with remarkable agreement. In this contribution, a status review of these issues will be provided, with emphasis on the mitigation schemes and the lessons learned for future space missions where extreme stability is a key requirement.
Department/s
- Lund Observatory - Has been reorganised
Publishing year
2016
Language
English
Publication/Series
Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave
Volume
9904
Document type
Conference paper
Publisher
SPIE
Topic
- Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Keywords
- Astrometry
- Basic angle
- Focus
- Gaia
- Interferometry
- Stability
- Straylight
- Wavefront sensor
Conference name
Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave
Conference date
2016-06-26 - 2016-07-01
Conference place
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISBN: 9781510601871