Paper 13093-121
Alignment and ground calibration of the Carruthers GeoCoronal Imager
17 June 2024 • 17:30 - 19:00 Japan Standard Time | Room G5, North - 1F
Abstract
The Carruthers Geocorona Observatory is a NASA Heliophysics mission designed to study the variability of
Earth’s hydrogen exosphere. Launching in 2025, the Carruthers GeoCoronal Imager (GCI) will observe the
exosphere at Far Ultraviolet wavelengths from an Earth-Sun L1 vantage point. The GCI consists of two co-
aligned imagers that simultaneously provide both wide field observations of the entire exosphere, in addition to
high spatial resolution observations near the Earth’s limb. The optical prescription for both the narrow field
imager (NFI) and wide field imager (WFI) is discussed, including critical analyses that were performed during
the design phase of the project. A deterministic alignment approach was adopted to verify performances of
the imagers at visible wavelengths prior to verification in the vacuum ultraviolet. The details of this alignment
plan, along with opto-mechanical considerations and requirements are discussed in detail. Finally, we discuss the
imaging performance of the system in the ultraviolet utilizing a ground calibration facility previously developed
for another NASA spaceflight mission.
Presenter
Space Sciences Lab. (United States)
Mr. Rider is an Aerospace Manager at the UC Berkeley (UCB) Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL). He is the remote sensing group supervisor at UCB/SSL, and has contributed to a number of NASA spaceflight missions as well as ground based astronomical experiments. Mr. Rider is currently the deputy project manager for the GLIDE mission (currently in phase C), in addition to serving technical roles as the optical engineer and mechanisms lead for the instrument. He also contributed to the successfully launched ICON mission as the deputy project systems engineer (DPSE) and the EUV/FUV instrument systems engineer (phase B-D). Most recently, Mr. Rider delivered the Keck Planet Finder (KPF) spectrograph to the W.M. Keck Observatory in August 2022. Mr. Rider served as the project manager and UCB engineering lead for the KPF project.