Improving Experimental Variation in Optical Testing Enclosure
Team: STScI-E23
- Program: Mechanical Engineering
- Course: Mechanical Engineering Senior Design II EN.530.404
Project Description:
The goal of NASA’s future Habitable World Observatory is to find earth-like exoplanets with space telescopes. However, a nearby star’s light can outshine the exoplanet making the exoplanet hard to see. Therefore, a star’s light must be masked. STScI has created HiCAT (High-contrast imager for Complex Aperture Telescopes) to mask a star’s light. HiCAT uses a laser to simulate incoming starlight. This laser must be extremely stable, but testing conditions ( humidity, turbulence, vibration) create undesirable laser beam propagation.
Our goals are as follows:
1. Identify & reduce vibration sources causing experimental error
2. Create a closed-loop humidity-controlled environment
3. Redesign HiCAT’s top panel & cable paths to decrease airflow out of the HiCAT enclosure
4. Install a sub-enclosure to isolate the laser path from turbulent airflow
Project Photo:
Image of optical instruments on an optical table.
Project Poster
Project Post Summary:
This is a poster board describing our work on the project. It includes the project goals, and how we set about achieving each goal through mechanical design and analysis.
Project Mentors, Sponsors, and Partners
- Remi Soummer
- Steven Belkoff