Star Watch Astrometry Probe

TL;DR

Star Watch is a highly advanced space-based astrometry mission utilizing a long-baseline optical interferometer to measure stellar positions with unprecedented precision, enabling detailed study of nearby terrestrial exoplanets.

Contribution

It introduces a technologically mature, space-based interferometry system with novel components, advancing the capability for exoplanet detection and characterization beyond previous missions.

Findings

Achieved TRL-6 for key hardware components after extensive testing.

Incorporated recent technological advances for improved performance.

Prepared for deployment to measure exoplanet masses and orbits.

Abstract

The Star Watch extreme-precision astrometry mission (0.1 - 1.0 uas) builds on technology developed, and validated, during the SIM (Space Interferometry Mission) project. The sole science instrument is an optical interferometer with 50-cm collecting apertures, separated by a 6-meter baseline. The heart of this detector is the Astrometric Beam Combiner (ABC). This is flight-quality hardware that underwent testing at high levels of integration, retiring most technical risk (achieving TRL-6) after 10 years and $600 million of investment. The ABC is in storage at JPL, ready to complete testing, followed by integration with the mission support structure. Star Watch incorporates advances in technology since the end of the SIM project. These include smaller, lighter beam launchers and corner cubes for laser metrology; attitude-control micro-thrusters, allowing deletion of reaction wheels; and advanced fringe detectors. The technology pioneered by Star Watch, the first long-baseline Michelson interferometer in space, represents an important investment in the future of space astronomy. NASA's proposed Vision Missions (Exo-Earth, Black Hole and Cosmic Dawn Mappers) require the use of precision interferometers. No other Astrophysics Probe concept comes close to this level of technical readiness. There are no analogs to Star Watch. It will provide access, for the first time, to the realm of temperate Terrestrial worlds circling nearby sun-like stars, measuring true masses and orbits. This can be achieved by the close of the 2020s.