Paper
28 September 2011 A flux-pinning mechanism for segment assembly and alignment
Jessica A. Gersh-Range, William R. Arnold, Mason A. Peck, H. Philip Stahl
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
Currently, the most compelling astrophysics questions include how planets and the first stars formed and whether there are protostellar disks that contain large organic molecules. Although answering these questions requires space telescopes with apertures of at least 10 meters, such large primaries are challenging to construct by scaling up previous designs; the limited capacity of a launch vehicle bounds the maximum diameter of a monolithic primary, and beyond a certain size, deployable telescopes cannot fit in current launch vehicle fairings. One potential solution is connecting the primary mirror segments edgewise using flux-pinning mechanisms, which are analogous to non-contacting damped springs. In the baseline design, a flux-pinning mechanism consists of a magnet and a superconductor separated by a predetermined gap, with the damping adjusted by placing aluminum near the interface. Since flux pinning is possible only when the superconductor is cooled below a critical temperature, flux-pinning mechanisms are uniquely suited for cryogenic space telescopes. By placing these mechanisms along the edges of the mirror segments, a primary can be built up over time. Since flux pinning requires no mechanical deployments, the assembly process could be robotic or use some other noncontacting scheme. Advantages of this approach include scalability and passive stability.
© (2011) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Jessica A. Gersh-Range, William R. Arnold, Mason A. Peck, and H. Philip Stahl "A flux-pinning mechanism for segment assembly and alignment", Proc. SPIE 8150, Cryogenic Optical Systems and Instruments XIII, 815005 (28 September 2011); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.893486
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Cited by 3 scholarly publications.
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KEYWORDS
Superconductors

Mirrors

Space telescopes

Magnetism

Cryogenics

Robotics

Telescopes

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