Wavefront Sensing in Space from the PICTURE-B Sounding Rocket

A NASA sounding rocket for high contrast imaging with a visible nulling coronagraph, the Planet Imaging Coronagraphic Technology Using a Reconfigurable Experimental Base (PICTURE-B) payload has made two suborbital attempts to observe the warm dust disk inferred around Epsilon Eridani. We present results from the November 2015 launch demonstrating active wavefront sensing in space with a piezoelectric mirror stage and a micromachine deformable mirror along with precision pointing and lightweight optics in space.
Comment: Presented at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation