Always nice to see a Delta launcher go. Extra nice to see a heavy go!
The payload is for the NRO, so we can only speculate as to what it was for. As reported by the L.A. Times…
Although little is publicly known about what exactly the rocket will be carrying into space, analysts say it is probably a $1-billion high-powered spy satellite capable of snapping pictures detailed enough to distinguish the make and model of an automobile hundreds of miles below.
If this is a LEO spacecraft, it’s probably on the big side, given the Delta IV Heavy’s capability.
The payload deployment test shown above moves the FalconSAT-7 mission forward, which is scheduled for 2015. Why is this “cubesat” important? It uses diffraction instead of refraction or reflection and it is becoming a real alternate to a large space-based observatory in studying the Sun’s chromosphere — especially in the H-alpha wavelengths.
A photon sieve is a novel optical element consisting of a flat opaque sheet with millions of tiny holes. Light passing through these holes is focused in a similar manner to a lens or a mirror. Photon sieves have several key advantages over those more conventional optics:
Focusing can be achieved from a flat, thin sheet that can be unfurled from a very compact, lightweight package
Surface quality tolerances are orders of magnitude more relaxed
The fabrication costs are much lower
The trade-offs include:
Lower efficiency / loss of light
Narrow bandwidth giving what are essentially grayscale images
The photon sieve will have the following design parameters:
2.5 billion holes ranging in size from 2-277 microns
50% fill factor, 30% focusing efficiency
The telescope has a relatively simple design due to space constraints and has:
4 µrad resolution which equates to 600 km at Sun surface
~0.1 degree field of view (about a 1/5th of the Sun’s disk)
Clockwise from top left: A 4-inch photon sieve lit by laser light. The focal spot produced. A magnified image of the central 25mm. An image of a resolution chart produced by the sieve. An interferogram of the wavefront that indicates perfect focusing capability.
