SHADOW: StarsHADe Observations of new Worlds Ashlee Wilkins - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

SHADOW: StarsHADe Observations of new Worlds Ashlee Wilkins (University of Maryland), Abhi Rajan (Arizona State University), Álvaro Ribas (European Space Astronomy Center), Alexandra Greenbaum (Johns Hopkins University)

Finding other Earths ● Medium-size $4bn Starshade Exoplanet mission ● 5 year dedicated mission ● Target likely Earth analogs

Mission Design Operations Launch ● Trailing Orbit ● Spacecraft D (Tel) ● 3.5 m Telescope ● Launch Vehicle F ● 42 m starshade ● Spacecraft Z (Starshade)

Planet Yields Earth: 5.5 (n Earth = 0.1) Warm Neptune: 2.54 (n Warm Neptune = 0.05) Jupiter: 0.94 (n Jupiter = 0.01) Neptune: 0.52 (n Neptune = 0.05)

Budget & Cost Trade-Off Pricetag : 3.5m telescope ------- $3.43 billion. Tradeoffs : Smaller telescope mirror (3.5m vs. 4.0m) saves $1.5 billion and equals loss <0.5 Earths Larger starshade (42m vs. 30m) costs 200mn vs. 120mn

Scope (Time on/off survey) 5 Year Survey 100 stars --- 100% Exoplanet Science. Starshade slew time = 16 days Survey time = 0.6 yrs out of 5 yrs Mission will provide significant GO opportunity

Summary wanderingspace. net ● Expect ~6 earths ● lots of time for other science. ● Within $4 billion budget ● Scalability: Room for more starshades to increase yield