Paper 14145-298
Paper 14145-298
A giant telescope manufactured in space?
9 July 2026 • 17:30 - 19:00 CEST | Room B4-M3
Abstract
We explore a concept for a giant telescope manufactured in space to enable a primary mirror of 100m diameter. This is combined with a module containing a secondary mirror, correction optics and a prime focus instrumentation, flying in formation at about 1000m from the primary mirror. We assume that deployment of such a large primary mirror in space would require that a large fraction of the system would need to be manufactured in space in order to minimise launch costs, although that trade-off may now be changing with potential advances in heavy-lift capabilities. The enormous challenges of such a project mean that it would be many decades before the technology is possible, but when it is we could have unprecedented angular resolution and sensitivity and consequent breakthroughs in many areas, with exoplanet characterisation being the stand out application. Potential technical solutions are presented, leading to discussion of the potential scientific capability.
Presenter
The Univ. of Edinburgh (United Kingdom)
Colin Cunningham is an honorary professor at the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University. During a 32 year career at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh and the UK Astronomy Technology Centre he was project manager for the SCUBA submm camera on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, systems engineer for the SPIRE Instrument on the Herschel Space Observatory and project director for the UK work on the ESO Extremely Large Telescope. Until recently he was Royal Academy of Engineering visiting professor in systems engineering at the University of Edinburgh. He has twice been chair of the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation Symposium.