Starshade starlight-suppression performance with a deployable structure

摘要

Starshades are an exoplanet direct-imaging architecture that uses a precisely-shaped screen to block the light from a star in order to achieve high-contrast imaging of exoplanets. The shape of the deployable starshade structure must precisely match the design shape in order to maintain the high level of starlight suppression. In this paper, we discuss analysis of error sources from the starshade structure including manufacturing, dynamics, and thermal distortion to show that the starshade can achieve the needed optical performance.