CALISTO - A Novel Architecture for the Single Aperture Far Infrared Observatory

Details CALISTO - A Novel Architecture for the Single Aperture Far Infrared Observatory CALISTO - A Novel Architecture for the Single Aperture Far Infrared Observatory

Dec 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aas...21113606l&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #211, #136.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.978

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Following the success of Spitzer, and in expectation of success with JWST and Herschel, the astronomical community is looking ahead to a large aperture far infrared mission that can build on the scientific results of these missions. This expectation was formalized by the 2000 Decadal recommendation for design studies on a SAFIR - a single aperture far infrared observatory. A JWST-inspired architecture for SAFIR was considered in a Vision Mission study several years ago. We present here a exciting new architecture for this important mission that offers several advantages. This CALISTO (Cryogenic Far-Infrared/Submillimeter Observatory) architecture, originally developed by JPL, builds on the thermally optimized passive cooling design of the Vision Mission version of SAFIR, and focal plane instrument strategies as well, but is based on a 4x6m ellipsoidal primary that greatly simplifies deployment out of an ELV launch shroud. Used off-axis, this design is much less affected by scattered (e.g. galactic plane and ZODI) emission than previous architectures, providing astronomical background-limited facility over much of the sky. Technologies for such a large mirror, diffraction-limited at 20µm, are now becoming credible. Using the large focal plane to host envisioned large format sensor arrays operating with high spatial resolution, CALISTO will resolve the far infrared extragalactic background, and trace the chemical evolution of galaxies. Simple models suggest that detection of the first structure in the universe, marked by cooling primordial clouds of molecular hydrogen at high z, may be achievable with such a telescope. Further building on the work of Spitzer, CALISTO will trace the development of planetary systems, probing the inner structure of star forming disks, and reveal the structure of nearby solar systems using the structure of debris disks that surround them. We review in this paper the science goals and engineering challenges for this mission.

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