Work

Performance assessment and enhancement of high-resolution space telescopes under the effect of micro-vibrations

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: To accurately characterize the imaging performance of opto-mechanical systems under micro-vibrations, this study first establishes an integrated “disturbance-optics-structure” analysis model, then proposes three analysis methods, time-domain analysis, frequency-domain analysis, and Lyapunov analysis, to characterize the transient characteristics and statistical characteristics through the peak-to-peak value( P-P LOS ) and RMS value( RMS LOS ) of the line-of-sight(LOS) error, respectively. The analysis results show that under the given micro-vibration disturbance, the P-P LOS of a certain coaxial two-mirror telescope is 0.346′′, and the RMS LOS calculated by the three analysis methods are 0.03797′′, 0.03786′′, and 0.03789′′, respectively, with a relative error of less than 1%, verifying their effectiveness. By identifying critical frequencies through PSD and cumulative RMS curves, two optimization approaches are proposed: structural optimization and vibration isolation, reducing the P-P LOS and RMS LOS values by 14.5% / 23.4% and 22.0% / 28.0%, respectively. The research establishes a quantitative assessment framework for LOS error of the space telescopes under random vibrations and provides theoretical guidance for performance enhancement.

Source: Optics Express

DOI: 10.1364/oe.585657