Getting one thousand times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope and an Tether based Asteroid wrangler are new NASA NIAC 2014 projects

The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program announced its 2014 awards. NIAC has selected twelve new NIAC Phase I awards. These proposals have been selected based on the potential of their concepts to transform future aerospace missions, enable new capabilities, or significantly alter and improve current approaches.

Each Phase I study will receive approximately $100,000 for 9 months to one year, and each Phase II study will receive approximately $500,000 for approximately two years. These studies will advance numerous innovative aerospace concepts, and help NASA achieve future goals

The Aragoscope: Ultra-High Resolution Optics at Low Cost by Webster Cash. Webster Cash has had previous NIAC awards and done interesting leading edge space telescope research.

A new mission architecture for telescopes in space will shatter the cost barrier for large, diffraction-limited optics. The diagram in the summary chart shows a conventional telescope pointed at an opaque disk along an axis to a distant target. Rather than block the view, the disk boosts the resolution of the system with no loss of collecting area. This architecture, dubbed the “Aragoscope” in honor of the scientist who first detected the diffracted waves, can be used to achieve the diffraction limit based on the size of the low cost disk, rather than the high cost telescope mirror. One can envision affordable telescopes that could provide 7cm resolution of the ground from geosynchronous orbit or images of the sky with one thousand times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope.

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