Kieran A. Carroll

The MOST Asteroseismology Mission: Ultraprecise Photometry from Space

ABSTRACT The Microvariablity and Oscillations of Stars (MOST) mission is a low‐cost microsatellite designed to detect low‐degree acoustic oscillations (periods of minutes) with micromagnitude precision in solar‐type stars and metal‐poor subdwarfs. There are also plans to detect light reflected from giant, short‐period, extrasolar planets and the oscillations of roAp stars and the turbulent variability in the dense winds of Wolf‐Rayet stars. This paper describes the experiment and how we met the challenge of ultraprecise photometry despite severe constraints on the mass, volume, and power available for the instrument. A side‐viewing, 150 mm aperture Rumak‐Maksutov telescope feeds two frame‐transfer CCDs, one for tracking and the other for science. There is a single 300 nm wide filter centered at 525 nm. Microlenses project Fabry images of the brighter ( \documentclass{aastex} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{bm} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{pifont} \usepackage...

Most (microvariability & oscillations of stars) Canadian astronomical micro-satellite

Abstract MOST is a Canadian micro-satellite project to perform seismology of solar-type and magnetic stars from space, as well as to study micro-variability in Wolf-Rayet winds and other targets. We give a brief technical description of the satellite as well as estimates on the expected photometric performance.

Real Solar Sails are Not Ideal, and Yes It Matters

Ideal solar sails are perfectly flat, rigid, and reflective, can hold arbitrary sun angles perfectly, etc. Real sails are very different. Yet much preliminary mission analysis is done with ideal sails, on the assumption that the only important effect of non-ideal behavior is slightly reduced performance. This assumption is often false. Real sails simply cannot fly some mission plans that look plausible for ideal sails, and in other cases, realistic mission design and realistic sailcraft design much consider some aspects of non-ideal sail behavior from the start.