Commercialising an unfolding, self-aligning CubeSat telescope

剑桥天文学研究所将与该大学的附属公司Super-Sharp Space Systems有限公司合作，开发一种红外线望远镜，用于在空间观测地球表面。这台相机将使用创新的轻质、展开和自对准技术，使望远镜的光学系统在展开时比传统望远镜的光学系统大4倍。用任何望远镜拍摄的图像的清晰度与望远镜光学系统的大小成正比。更大意味着更清晰，所以我们的超清晰望远镜将提供比目前技术水平清晰4倍的图像。我们独特的卖点是，我们的技术为给定的卫星使命成本提供更清晰的图像。这不仅可以实现低成本的高清晰度成像，而且还可以提供低成本的星座，以便更频繁地查看特定位置，并且可以从太空中进行高清晰度热红外成像，这只能通过非常大的望远镜来完成。我们的望远镜将在红外线的热部分工作，这提供了几个优点。1.比周围环境温暖的物体看起来更亮，因此望远镜可以用来寻找或监测温暖的物体。2.该望远镜还将在地球的夜晚工作。3.该望远镜比在人眼使用的波长下工作的望远镜受云层的影响更小。应用包括：1）监测全球建筑物的能源使用情况，以检查政府、公司和个人在碳排放承诺方面的表现。2）早期发现野火。3）监测农作物，以早期发现缺水和疾病。4）改善金融部门的预测。5）发现非法捕鱼。6）防御。7）管理宝贵的基础设施资产。（例如管道和电力线）。共同的应用主题是保护宝贵资产，独立验证第三方报告，我们将在该项目中开发的望远镜可通过12 U立方体卫星使命部署，并将看到小至7米宽的地物（相比之下，类似尺寸的立方体卫星中的常规相机为28米）。房屋、飞机、船只和大型公路车辆等物体将部分被解决。牲畜和汽车将在图像中显示为单个像素。这项技术可以按比例放大，用于更大的卫星平台，当我们的望远镜用于最大的卫星平台时，在热红外线中可以看到20厘米宽的特征，这些卫星平台几乎可以安装在现有最大的火箭整流罩内。这项技术也可以用于更短的波长，我们的研究项目的一部分将是学习如何提高这项技术的准确性放大20倍，这样它就能在我们肉眼看到的相同波长下，提供非常高清晰度的图像。我们的目标是成为世界领先的天基高清晰度望远镜。目前，世界上还没有专门从事高清晰度空间光学的商业公司。在非商业方面，这项技术也将在天文学上有很大的用途，使天文学界拥有更大规模的太空观测站，包括几个像哈勃太空望远镜一样强大的天文台。甚至有可能拥有专供中小学和大学使用的太空望远镜。最终，超级锐利的望远镜可以用来搜索大量附近的系外行星，寻找生命的迹象。

The Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, in partnership with the University spin-out, Super-Sharp Space Systems ltd, will develop an infra-red telescope for use in space to observe the surface of the earth. This camera will use an innovative light-weight, unfolding and self-aligning technology so that the telescope's optics are about 4 times bigger when unfolded than the optics of a conventional telescope. The sharpness of an image taken with any telescope is directly proportional to the size of the telescope's optics. Bigger means sharper so our super-sharp telescope will give images that are 4 times sharper than the current state of the art.Our unique selling point is that our technology gives much sharper images for a given satellite mission cost. This not only enables lower cost high definition imaging but it also offers lower cost constellations for more frequent viewing of a particular location and it enables high definition thermal infra red imaging from space which can only be done with very large telescopes.Our telescope will work in the thermal part of the infrared which offers several advantages. 1. things that are warmer than their surroundings appear brighter so the telescope can be used to find or monitor warm things. 2. the telescope will also work on the night side of the earth. 3. the telescope is less affected by cloud cover than telescopes operating at the wavelengths used by the human eye.Applications include:1) Monitoring the energy usage of buildings globally to check how governments, companies and individuals are doing with respect to their carbon emission commitments.2) Early detection of wildfires.3) Monitoring crops for early detection of water stress and disease.4) Improved predictions for the financial sector.5) Detection of illegal fishing.6) Defence.7) Management of valuable infra-structure assets (e.g. pipelines and electricity power lines).Shared application themes are the protection of valuable assets, independent verification of third party reports, night-time surveillance and early warning of change.The telescope we will develop in this project can be deployed via a 12U CubeSat mission and will see features as small as 7 metres across (compared to 28 metres for a conventional camera in a similarly sized CubeSat). Objects such as houses, aircraft, ships, and large road vehicles will be partially resolved. Livestock and cars will show up as single pixels in the images. The technology can be scaled up in size for use with larger satellite platforms and features as small as 20 cm across will be visible in the thermal infra red when our telescopes are used on the largest satellite platforms which just about fit inside the largest existing rocket fairings.The technology can also be used at shorter wavelengths and part of our research project will be to learn how to improve the accuracy of the technology by a factor of 20 so that it also gives very high definition images at the same wavelengths that we see with our own eyes. We aim to become the world-leaders in space based high definition telescopes. Currently, there is no commercial company in the world that specializes in high definition space optics.On the non-commercial side, the technology will also be of great use for astronomy, allowing the astronomical community to have a much larger fleet of space observatories including several as powerful as the Hubble Space Telescope. It will even be possible to have space telescopes for the sole use of schools and colleges. Ultimately, super-sharp telescopes can be used to search a large number of nearby exoplanets for signs of life.