Small Sat Telescopes
Primary Features:
- Available in apertures from 25 cm up to 50 cm
- Athermal Optical Performance
- Compact, Low Mass Design
- VIS to NIR
- Supports a wide range of cameras and sensors
Description & Features
AOS’s AP Series Satellite Telescopes are a constellation-ready product line, which can be adapted to specific customer needs with collaborative system engineering. New project development matches specific customer requirements with the advantages of the AOS telescope architecture and results in production-ready dependable optical systems.
SiC: The Enabling Advantage:
Silicon Carbide (SiC) is a unique advanced composite ceramic, which has the highest combination of specific stiffness and thermal-optical stability of any optically polishable material. Because of its unique properties, SiC can be used as both the structural and the optical material, enabling complete athermal designs. SiC telescopes outperform conventional glass and metal designs often eliminating the need for active focus control and thermal compensation technologies. Simplified designs lead to higher reliability, lower production cost, and lower mass.
Designed For Production:
Our telescopes are designed for our vertically integrated advanced manufacturing facilities guaranteeing performance. Fabrication of telescopes is accomplished using high precision diamond based shaping, and robotic polishing. Image performance is verified interferometrically through extensive systems testing.
Specifications
AP Series telescopes utilize SiC materials for all critical mirror and optical metering structures. The structure supports a range of launch orientations allowing flexibility in launch options.
The AP Series telescope system is a standardized architecture with generalized specifications intended to define baseline performance specifications. Most AP series telescopes are customized to meet customer defined mission requirements. Therefore, specifications below should be considered as typical only. All specifications are for as-built performance and verified through customer agreed acceptance testing.
| Attribute | Range |
| Design | Dall Kirkham and Ritchey-Chrétien |
| Material
Aperture |
Silicon Carbide
25 to 50 cm |
| Focal Length
Length |
1.1 m to 2.4 m
30-60 cm |
| F# | f/5 to f/11 |
| Field of View | 0.5 to 1.2 degree |
| Mass | 4 – 7 Kg |
| Athermal | -10 to +30 C |
| Satellite Interface | Custom integrated Flexure |
Ordering Information
Satellite telescope project planning begins with understanding our customers’ goals for performance, schedule and budget. AOS will present a preliminary solution based on our library of designs and our baseline AP-series telescope product. Sensor selection and spacecraft interface are conducted in collaboration with our customers’ systems engineers to merge our combined assets into effective final designs.
Contact us today to speak with an applications engineer.
