Advance Formation Flying Technology for Spacecraft
Even small optical interferometers in space could vastly exceed the sensitivity of ground based systems, and directly image Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars, but this requires advances in precision (<1 micron) formation flying technology for spacecraft. [This is both an engineering bottleneck, and a scientific bottleneck]
Resources (4)
LIFE: Large Interferometer For Exoplanets
Initiative
The Stellar Imager Vision Mission
Initiative
A Realistic Roadmap to Formation Flying Space Interferometry
Research and Reviews
Workshop: Astronomical Optical Interferometry from the Lunar Surface
Whitepapers and Essays
R&D Gaps (1)
Space telescopes offer vastly superior sensitivity to ground-based systems, but enhancing their resolution requires spacecraft with sub-micron precision.
Angular resolution of telescopes is limited by the size of the primary optic. Coherent aperture synthesis (interferometry) gets around this by ...