STarlight Acquisition and Reflection toward Interferometry : Precision formation-flying cubesats enabling space interferometry (STARI)

Ground-based long-baseline interferometry provides milli-arcsecond imaging across the electromagnetic spectrum, allowing new views of the event horizon of a blackhole, surfaces of stars beyond the Sun, and high-precision spectra of exoplanets. These breakthrough discoveries are the tip of the iceberg of the potential for interferometry and NASA has repeatedly placed space interferometry on its strategic technology roadmap needed in the fields of x-ray, optical and far-infrared astronomy. Most relevant here, a future nulling interferometry mission to measure mid-infrared biomarkers in the atmospheres of nearby exo-Earths was discussed in Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s. These exciting future missions need pathfinders to advance the technology readiness level of key components. With the recent breakthroughs in smallsat missions, NASA can now afford to advance the technologies for precise coordination of multiple spacecraft, a core and uniquely-demanding requirement for high-precision formation-flying space interferometers. Our interdisciplinary team of Astrophysicists and Engineers propose to design, build, and fly a two-cubesat pathfinder STARI, STarlight Acquisition and Reflection toward Interferometry. STARI will fill the gaps in our technology readiness to permit a science-based smallsat interferometer mission within the Decade. The 6U-cubesat STARI-1 will host a small 2.5cm siderostat with precision guiding to direct starlight across hundreds of meters to the STARI-2 spacecraft, an identical partner to STARI-1 which will then also send light to STARI-1. Each STARI will also launch a collimated laser reference to guide starlight into a single-mode fiber, a critical building block for a future nulling interferometry combiner needed for exoplanet science. An advanced sensor fusion approach will combine differential GPS and multi-LED beacon imaging to measure relative positions of STARI-1 and STARI-2 to within a few millimeters. Mission Operations will also validate propulsion and thruster performance for orientation reconfiguration, following passively-safe orbital evolution. This ambitious project is possible by assembling a six-institution team with deep experience in formation flying, propulsion, precision relative navigation, interferometric instrumentation, and cubesat mission planning. The cost and schedule are kept reasonable using the deep technology heritage developed by our team over the past decade. STARI relies on mostly demonstrated component technology and we propose a 5-year plan with a Project Plan Review at the end of Year 2. STARI will demonstrate the final missing technology pieces needed to enable the first nulling space interferometer for exoplanet discovery and characterization.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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