Paper
30 January 2004 Implications of structural design requirements for selection of future space telescope architectures
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Abstract
Decisions about structural architecture for future large space observatories will influence how overall optical stability scales with observatory size. This is examined using basic structural design analyses that relate overall stability requirements to telescope structural modal frequency and damping ratio. In this way, the influence of certain system level architectural choices on the performance can be assessed. In particular, trades between structural depth and optical correction requirements is examined, and compared against other design parameters such as the material specific modulus. For representative configurations and loads, the required optical correction increases with dimension to the fourth power, but reduces with the square of the structural depth and in proportion to the material specific modulus; areal density has no direct affect. This means that, unless the structural architecture improves with dimension, the optical error produced in a 6-meter telescope might increase by a factor of 123:1 for a 20-meter telescope and 77000:1 for a 100-meter telescope. If the structural depth, however, increases in proportion to telescope dimension, these requirements can be reduced by two orders of magnitude. Architectural options for achieving these benefits are discussed, with particular emphasis on considerations of the deployment or assembly scheme.
© (2004) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Lee D. Peterson and Jason D. Hinkle "Implications of structural design requirements for selection of future space telescope architectures", Proc. SPIE 5166, UV/Optical/IR Space Telescopes: Innovative Technologies and Concepts, (30 January 2004); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.506607
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Cited by 18 scholarly publications.
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KEYWORDS
Space telescopes

Telescopes

Observatories

Structural design

James Webb Space Telescope

Packaging

Space operations

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