Wide Aperture Exoplanet Telescope: a low-cost flat configuration for a 100+ meter ground based telescope

TL;DR

The WAET design proposes a cost-effective, large ground-based optical telescope with a flat, wide aperture exceeding 100 meters, utilizing an unconventional beam path for simplified construction and full steerability.

Contribution

It introduces a novel flat configuration for extremely large ground-based telescopes that reduces cost and complexity compared to traditional segmented mirror designs.

Findings

WAET can achieve apertures over 100 meters at low cost.

The design maintains full steerability with a fixed gravity vector.

Numerical scaling laws support cost-effectiveness over traditional telescopes.

Abstract

The Wide Aperture Exoplanet Telescope (WAET) is a ground-based optical telescope layout in which one dimension of a filled aperture can be made very, very large (beyond 100 m) at low cost and complexity. With an unusual beam path but an otherwise-conventional optics, we obtain a fully-steerable telescope on a low-rise mount with a fixed gravity vector on key components. Numerous design considerations and scaling laws suggest that WAET can be far less expensive than other giant segmented mirror telescopes.