Astronomy & Telescopes

ESCAPE Project: Investigating Active Observing Strategies and Post-processing Methods for Exoplanet High-contrast Imaging with Future Space Missions

By Keith Cowing

Status Report

astro-ph.EP

September 10, 2024

Filed under astro-ph.EP, astronomy, Biosignatures, coronagraph, data, ESCAPE project, exoplanet, Habitable Worlds Observatory, Hubble, imaging, Roman Space Telescope, Spectroscopy, telescope

ESCAPE Project: Investigating Active Observing Strategies and Post-processing Methods for Exoplanet High-contrast Imaging with Future Space Missions — Proposed observing strategy and post-processing strategy for Roman Coronagraph operations. After the dark hole is created, high-order mode dithers are applied on the DM during the reference star observations and the corresponding science camera (EXCAM) images and low order wavefront sensor measurements are saved. After the science target observations, the science camera images are compared to the high-order mode dithered reference star image library using PCA-type algorithms to produce a custom speckle pattern that matches the science observations. This approach is a generalization of the tip-tilt and low-order mode dithers tested on JWST13 and Subaru11, 12 to high-order modes within a dark hole. In complement, the low-order wavefront sensor telemetry can be used to further inform the speckle pattern model by down-selecting or excluding specific images from the dither library depending on how they match with the science target telemetry. Simulated images and modes from 26, 53. astro-ph.EP

The search for biosignatures in potentially habitable exoplanets is one of the major astrophysics’ drivers for the coming decades, and the prime science goal of the HWO NASA mission, a large UV-Optical-IR space telescope to be launched in the 2040s.

To reach this goal, it will be equipped with state-of-the-art high-contrast spectro-imaging capabilities enabling the detection of exoplanets 10^¹⁰ times fainter than their host stars, a formidable challenge given today’s best detection limits at ~10^^-6 contrast levels. This goal puts stringent constraints on the entire observatory, and demands the optimization at the system level to leverage the performance of individual sub-systems.

However, while image processing techniques are a key asset to reach the ultimate performance, the science and technological definition of the mission concepts mostly rely on the coronagraph and wavefront control to reject the starlight, assuming a conservative gain of ~10 in sensitivity from image processing, extrapolated from performance obtained with classical techniques on Hubble observations.

In the ESCAPE project, we investigate integrated solutions for optimizing the observing methods and data processing techniques with future space telescopes, making use of their wavefront sensors and deformable mirrors.

The Roman Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2026, will be a critical milestone to demonstrate key technologies ahead of HWO with the Coronagraph instrument, and is thus a unique opportunity to also test and validate innovative image processing techniques. Here we present the rational, methodology, and timeline of the ESCAPE project.

Elodie Choquet, Lisa Altinier, Nicolás Godoy, Alexis Lau, Arthur Vigan, David Mary

Comments: Proceedings of the 2024 SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation conference
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
Cite as: arXiv:2409.02019 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2409.02019v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2409.02019
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Journal reference: Proc. SPIE 13092, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2024: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave, 130926I (23 August 2024)
Related DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3019163
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Submission history
From: Elodie Choquet
[v1] Tue, 3 Sep 2024 16:11:00 UTC (1,423 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.02019

Astrobiology,

Keith Cowing

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻

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