More Efficient Straylight Characterisation for Optical Instruments

The accuracy of optical instruments in space, in terms of how much stray light they allow, are increasingly more stringent. To keep up with these requirements, existing methods of manufacture and instruments themselves have become ever more time consuming and expensive. More efficient straylight characterisation methods will have to be investigated to keep up with current and future requirements.

An activity with TDE and TNO, in the Netherlands, has developed efficient straylight characterisation and verification techniques to find and demonstrate one or several novel cost and schedule effective solution(s) for:

• A straylight verification of an EO space optical instrument (SOI)
• A straylight characterisation of an Earth observation space optical instrument. Together, these would address the straylight suppression as well as the optimisation of the dynamic range coverage of the straylight.

A very robust, flexible and time-efficient method for the characterisation of straylight in imaging spectrometers was then developed. At the same time, a method for OGSE straylight characterisation and monitoring with high dynamic range was investigated.

Next the activity plans to implement the methods developed into the straylight characterisation process of a space instrument, with a focus on comparing its performance to the currently used standard methods and with the aim of enhancing its performance by increasing the dynamic range in the purely spectral dimension.

T116-503MM closed in 2022.