Impact of pointing jitter on high-precision photometry for exoplanet detection

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is currently working on the development of IACSAT, which is expected to become the first satellite of the IAC’s future space observatory. IACSAT will be capable of performing high-precision photometry in the VNIR and SWIR bands, primarily aimed at confirming Earth-like exoplanets located within the habitable zone of red dwarf stars. For high-precision photometry using two-dimensional sensors, pointing stability is critical in order to reduce the impact of detector non-uniformity. This work presents a study of the impact of pointing jitter on photometric performance, including both simulation results and laboratory experiments to validate the proposed mitigation strategies and performance models.