Optical Reef is the Space Engineering Research Centre’s endeavour to assemble an ultra large segmented space telescope in orbit. The assembly and operation of an aperture of up to one kilometer diameter in orbit presents many challenges: pertinent here is a detector plane not held in any rigid attachment to the collimating mirror. In this project we tackle the methodology by which to maintain the correct pointing direction of individual segment mirrors towards a separate, station keeping detector craft at a focal distance of hundreds of meters. During nominal operations the detector craft will need to simultaneously perform scientific readings as well as constantly re-position itself at the focal point of our optical system. To maintain true pointing accuracy and optical performance upon our detector surface, we propose an ILS-like radio cone emitted by the segments of an ultra large telescope to determine and adjust the fine displacement of the detector and form the basis of the aligned optical system. Such a system, building on the Instrument Landing System utilised in aviation, will allow for a reflected PSF to be maintained on our detector without the aid of a rigid structure used in current telescope designs, hopefully achieving time domain observations to within 10^-4 arcsec in the sky. Our aperture will emit radio cone-like signals separate to any optical light aggregation, orienting itself much like an aircraft on a glide-scope. We aim to show design consideration that fulfills the performance requirements with technological demonstration to aid in the long term development of the ultra large segmented telescope and tackle one of the many technological challenges associated with missions of this scale and complexity.

PhD student with the Space Engineering Research Centre at USC Focus on Space Telescope architecture and in-orbit assembly and operation. Formerly a YGT with ESA in the Ariel Project. Oxford MPhys.