BoostHeat (France)

GAIA is one of the cornerstone ESA missions which aims at compiling a catalogue of about one billion stars of our galaxy. Reaching the highly demanding scientific requirements lead ASTRIUM engineers to design a mechanically and thermally ultra-stable instrument. This is the reason why, thanks to its physical properties, the SiC turned out to be indispensable. The <strong>GAIA payload</strong> includes the following hardware which is mainly <strong>made of SiC</strong> i) the 3 meters quasi octagonal torus structure, ii) two identical 1.5 meters TMA type telescopes, iii) the central sub-assembly which holds several folding mirrors and the "Radial Velocity Spectrometer", iv) the focal plane and v) the "Basic Angle Monitoring". Due to the required large size (1 - 3 meters class), accuracy and shape complexity, developing and manufacturing these SiC parts was a real challenge for BOOSTEC. It is reviewed in this paper.

Placed on the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, SPICA will operate in the 5 to 210 μm wavelength range. Astrium has been contracted by ESA/ JAXA to update the study of the SPICA telescope from a 3.5 m design (compatible to the Japanese HIIB launcher) to a 3.2 m design (compatible to the HII-A with the short 5S fairing): despite a similar fairing diameter, the shorter length of the fairing envelope results in a reduction of the M1-M2 distance and an associated diameter reduction of M1. Maximization of the M1-M2 distance within the constraints is important to maintain a reasonable polishing criteria of the main reflector. Therefore the M2 assembly sizing and the back focal length become main parameters for the telescope optical design. The main constraints are driven by the telescope requirements such as focal length, maximizing the diameter of M1 (3.2 m) and, M1 f-number (critical for the manufacturing aspects). The WFE must be below 350 nm rms, and operational temperature below 6K. . The main issues addressed in this paper are: - an improved telescope design based on the Astrium background in Silicon Carbide technology which has been tried-an-tested for mirrors and structural parts on several space projects, including HERSCHEL and Gaia (brazing, polishing, assembling, iso-static mountings). - performances which are taking advantage of the SiC properties ,such as homogeneity of the single-phase material inside the structure, and structural stability from ambient to the operational temperature range. Our study shows that the SiC telescope design can fulfil all the mechanical and optical requirements for SPICA. - the verification and optical tests definition which will be key elements in the qualification of the telescope to be incorporated in the logic of the satellite verification activity to be conducted in Japan.

The median Doppler shift of radar echoes is analyzed in measurements by ENVISAT's Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) over the ocean. This Doppler centroid differs from a predicted signal based on the predicted motion of the satellite and Earth. This anomaly, converted to a surface Doppler velocity UD, appears to be of geophysical origin. Two wide‐swath images over the Gulf Stream around Cape Hatteras suggest that UD contains high‐resolution information on surface currents, while on a global scale, UD is found to vary with the wind speed in the range direction. A simple quantitative forward model is proposed, based on a practical two‐scale decomposition of the surface geometry and kinematics. The model represents the effect of the wind through the wave spectrum, and gives UD ≈ γU10∥ + Uc∥, with U10∥ and Uc∥ as the 10 m wind speed and quasi‐Eulerian current in the line of sight of the radar projected on the sea surface, respectively, and γ as a coefficient function of the wind speed, wave development, and radar geometry. It is found that for an incidence angle of 23°, γ ≈ 0.3 for moderate winds and fully developed seas. This model is validated with a global data set of ASAR Wave Mode observations, with colocated model winds, acquired over the global ocean during the years 2003 and 2004. The Doppler signal therefore provides the signed parameter UD that can be used to reduce the wind direction ambiguity in the inversion of high‐resolution wind fields from SAR imagery. A qualitative validation of current effects is shown for the English Channel where tidal currents dominate. Thus it should be possible to combine this previously ignored geophysical Doppler signal with traditional information on sea surface roughness, in order to provide very high resolution wind and current fields.

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