Design and performance of the BOPPS UVVis fine pointing system

摘要

In September, 2013 the BRRISON mission suffered an anomaly resulting in a total loss of science data for the duration of flight. The Balloon Observation Platform for Planetary Science (BOPPS) mission is in essence a re-flight of the BRRISON mission. The BOPPS mission was designed to study multiple comets and other planetary bodies as well as demonstrate a fine pointing system. The performance of this fine pointing system (FPS), designed for science pointing on the 50 milliarscecond level, will be discussed along with the mission as a whole. Due to a telescope focusing issue that manifested in flight during the allocated FPS demonstration window, thorough FPS characterization could not be performed. However, a calibration dataset demonstrated stable pointing of 33 and 58 milliarcsecond (mas) RMS in instrument Azimuth and Elevation respectively. This performance is considered marginal given the conservative FPS settings it was acquired with.