STARI: STarlight Acquisition and Reflection toward Interferometry
John D. Monnier (U. Michigan), Prachet Jain (U. Michigan), Shashank Kalluri (U. Michigan), James Cutler (U. Michigan), Simone D’Amico (Stanford), Glenn Lightsey (Georgia Tech), Leonid Pogorelyuk (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, MIT), Gautam Vasisht (JPL), Kerri Cahoy (MIT), Michael Meyer (U. Michigan)
arXiv:2408.03925v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: We present the concept for STARI: STarlight Acquisition and Reflection toward Interferometry. If launched, STARI will be the first mission to control a 3-D CubeSat formation to the few mm-level, reflect starlight over 10s to 100s of meters from one spacecraft to another, control tip-tilt with sub-arcsecond stability, and validate end-to-end performance by injecting light into a single-mode fiber. While STARI is not an interferometer, the mission will advance the Technology Readiness Levels of the essential subsystems needed for a space interferometer in the near future.arXiv:2408.03925v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: We present the concept for STARI: STarlight Acquisition and Reflection toward Interferometry. If launched, STARI will be the first mission to control a 3-D CubeSat formation to the few mm-level, reflect starlight over 10s to 100s of meters from one spacecraft to another, control tip-tilt with sub-arcsecond stability, and validate end-to-end performance by injecting light into a single-mode fiber. While STARI is not an interferometer, the mission will advance the Technology Readiness Levels of the essential subsystems needed for a space interferometer in the near future.