@article{b53f71f6a7094e38aee21f632a288994,
title = "Small Mirrors for Small Satellites: Design of the Deformable Mirror Demonstration Mission CubeSat (DeMi) Payload",
abstract = "The Deformable Mirror Demonstration Mission (DeMi) is a technology demonstration CubeSat to test a 140 actuator micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) deformable mirror in low-Earth orbit. Such mirrors can provide precise wavefront control with low size, weight, and power per actuator. Hence, they have the potential of improving contrast in coronagraphs on future space telescopes. In the DeMi payload, a Shack Hartmann lenslet array based wavefront sensor monitors the deformable mirror, illuminated by either an internal 636 nm laser diode or external starlight. This work describes the instrument design drivers and CubeSat implementation, and briefly illustrates operation on orbit by comparing ground-based measurements of a displaced actuator to an on-orbit measurement using the internal laser source. The 6U CubeSat was launched on February 25, 2020 and deployed from the International Space Station on July 13, 2020.",
keywords = "CubeSats, MEMS, astrophysics, deformable mirror, space telescopes, wavefront control, wavefront sensing",
author = "Douglas, {Ewan S.} and Greg Allan and Rachel Morgan and Holden, {Bobby G.} and Jennifer Gubner and Christian Haughwout and {do Vale Pereira}, Paula and Yinzi Xin and John Merk and Cahoy, {Kerri L.}",
note = "Funding Information: This material is based upon work supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Program Office under Contract No. W31P4Q-16-C-0089. The DeMi mission is managed by Aurora Flight Sciences (Aurora Subcontract: AMA-19-0015). The DeMi spacecraft bus was built under contract by Blue Canyon Technologies. RM is a NASA Space Technology Research Fellow under grant 80NSSC18K1182. YX is a NSF Graduate Research Fellow under grant 1122374. Portions of ED contribution to this work were supported by the Arizona Board of Regents Technology Research Initiative Fund (TRIF). Funding Information: The DeMi program has trained approximately one dozen graduate students in space astronomy, wavefront sensing, CubeSat design, and mission operations. These efforts have led to numerous student theses at the PhD (Marinan, 2016), masters (Allan, 2018 ; Haughwout, 2018 ; Morgan, 2020), and bachelor-degree levels (Gubner, 2018). The authors thank the Boston University Scientific Instruments Facility for their contributions to the hardware as well as Felipe Depine (Robots5), Kerry Gonzales and Bohan Li (UArizona), as well as thanks to Mark Egan, Gabor Furesz, and Becky Masterson (MIT) for advice and engineering inputs. Nanoracks LLC was the launch provider contracted for the DeMi spacecraft and provided useful equipment and instruction for spacecraft vibration testing. The MIT Kavli Institute generously provided access to an interferometer and clean room space for DeMi alignment and spacecraft testing. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} Copyright {\textcopyright} 2021 Douglas, Allan, Morgan, Holden, Gubner, Haughwout, do Vale Pereira, Xin, Merk and Cahoy.",
year = "2021",
month = aug,
day = "26",
doi = "10.3389/fspas.2021.676281",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "8",
journal = "Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences",
issn = "2296-987X",
publisher = "Frontiers Media S. A.",
}