Commercialising an unfolding, self-aligning CubeSat telescope

剑桥天文研究所将与大学分支机构Super-Sharp Space Systems Ltd合作，开发一种用于太空观测地球表面的红外线望远镜。这款相机将使用一种创新的轻质、展开和自动对准技术，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约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提供的图像将是目前技术水平的4倍。我们唯一的卖点是，在给定的卫星任务成本下，我们的技术可以提供更清晰的图像。这不仅可以实现更低成本的高清晰度成像，还可以提供成本更低的星座，以便更频繁地观看特定位置，并且它可以从太空进行只有非常大的望远镜才能完成的高清晰度红外成像。我们的望远镜将工作在红外的热部分，这提供了几个优势。1.比周围温暖的东西看起来更亮，所以望远镜可以用来发现或监测温暖的东西。2.该望远镜还将在地球的黑夜一侧工作。3.与人眼使用的波长的望远镜相比，望远镜受云层的影响较小。应用包括：1)监测全球建筑物的能源使用情况，以检查政府、公司和个人在其碳排放承诺方面做得如何。2)及早发现野火。3)监测农作物，以便及早发现水资源压力和疾病。4)改进对金融部门的预测。5)检测非法捕鱼。6)防御。7)管理有价值的基础设施资产(例如管道和输电线)。共同的应用主题是保护宝贵资产，独立核实第三方报告，我们将在这个项目中开发的望远镜可以通过12U立方体卫星任务部署，并将看到直径仅为7米的特征(相比之下，类似大小的立方体卫星中的传统相机为28米)。部分化解房屋、飞机、船舶、大型道路车辆等对象。牲畜和汽车将在图像中显示为单像素。这项技术可以扩大到更大的卫星平台上使用，当我们的望远镜用于最大的卫星平台时，我们的望远镜将在热红外中看到直径只有20厘米的特征。这项技术也可以在较短的波长使用，我们研究项目的一部分将是学习如何将该技术的精度提高20倍，这样它也可以在我们亲眼看到的相同波长下提供非常高清晰度的图像。我们的目标是成为太空高清晰度望远镜领域的世界领先者。目前，世界上还没有一家专门从事高清晰度空间光学的商业公司。在非商业方面，这项技术也将对天文学大有裨益，使天文学界拥有更多的空间观测站，包括几个像哈勃太空望远镜一样强大的空间观测站。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，超高清望远镜可以用来搜索附近的大量系外行星，寻找生命迹象。

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.