The Comet Interceptor mission was selected by ESA in June 2019 as ESA's new fast-class mission in its Cosmic Vision Programme. Comprising three spacecraft, it will be the first to visit a Long Period Comet (LPC) or even an interstellar object that is only just starting its journey into the inner Solar System. The RMA, under CSL responsibility, is a mechanism rotating a mirror which ensures that the comet is kept within the FoV of the CoCa instrument during the closest part of the approach. The RMA is composed of the Scanning Mirror Assembly (SMA), including a protection baffle, and the associated electronics (SME). The technical role of CSL is to design, develop, build and verify the SMA to be finally delivered to ESA as part of the RMA. This paper introduces the current activities on the RMA development with a deeper insight on the design steps and the preliminary results of the performed breadboard tests (mechanism actuation and coating impact tests). Additional presentation content can be accessed on the supplemental content page.


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    Title :

    The Rotating Mirror Assembly (RMA) onboard the Comet Interceptor mission: design, breadboard activities and development plan


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2022 ; 2022 ; Dubrovnik, Croatia


    Published in:

    Proc. SPIE ; 12777


    Publication date :

    2023-07-12





    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



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