According to the latest report, the world’s first purely private custom space manned mission consisting of all civilians has arrived at the International Space Station. During their stay, they will participate in many experiments, one of which is to try to make fluids for telescopes in space. Lenses could help NASA build larger and more powerful space telescopes than ever before.
The experiment, called the Fluid Telescope Experiment (FLUTE for short), aims to study the use of fluid materials to make lenses for space telescopes, a project that can be done in space after the materials are launched.
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If this technology proves to be feasible, the space telescope will be much larger than the equivalent equipment currently in use. This is important for astronomers because the bigger the telescope, the more powerful it is. Larger telescopes can collect more light, allowing astronomers to look deeper into space and see distant objects in greater detail.
Moreover, the Ax-1 mission, arranged by Houston-based company Axiom Space, carried four passengers to the International Space Station, where mission expert Eytan Stibbe will conduct an experiment to demonstrate technology for making telescope lenses out of fluid polymers, and harden it with UV light or heat.
It sounds difficult, but the process is relatively simple, like making acrylic nails in a nail salon. The most intriguing aspect of this experiment, though, is that it uses microgravity to assist in lens forming.
“In microgravity, fluids can be shaped into shapes that make telescope lenses,” Edward Balaban, principal investigator of the Fluid Telescope Experiment at NASA’s Ames Research Center, said in a statement. If you can make them in the middle of the day, you can obviously build telescopes that are significantly larger than ever before.”
In fact, this fluid technology may even be simpler than the current lens production process. “This approach allows us to completely skip any mechanical processes, such as grinding or polishing,” Moran Bercovici, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Technion, said in a statement. The natural physics of fluids and the academic characteristics helped us do all the work.”
Furthermore, the experiment’s research team, consisting of scientists from NASA Ames Research Center, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and the Israel Institute of Technology, has demonstrated the technology on Earth, first by simulating microgravity on Earth. In water, then in zero-gravity parabolic flight, the latter provides researchers with 15 to 20 seconds of microgravity time.
“Sure enough, within seconds, we were able to create a self-contained liquid lens,” Berkovich said. “Until the plane rises again, gravity kicks in again, and the material is fluid again. Our experiments on the space station will add one more steps to process these fluids so they hold their shape.”
“If our space station experiment is successful, it will be the first time an optical component has been fabricated in space, and it will feel a bit like making history,” Barabon said.
