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The Membrane Optical Imager for Real-Time Exploitation (MOIRE) program is a technology demonstration for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that will provide persistent, real-time, tactical video to the war fighter. To accomplish this capability, MOIRE is incrementally demonstrating the technologies needed to develop a large lightweight space-based telescope for geosynchronous orbit using advanced diffractive membrane optics.
MOIRE plans to demonstrate the manufacturability of large collection area telescopes (up to 20 meters), large structures to hold the optics tight and flat, and also demonstrate the additional optical elements needed to turn a diffraction-based optic into a wide bandwidth imaging device.
While the membrane is less efficient than glass, which is nearly 90 percent efficient, its much lighter weight enables creating larger lenses that more than make up the difference. The membrane is also substantially lighter than glass. Based on the performance of the prototype, a new system incorporating MOIRE optics would come in at roughly one-seventh the weight of a traditional system of the same resolution and mass. As a proof of concept, the MOIRE prototype validates membrane optics as a viable technology for orbital telescopes.
With a proposed diameter of 20 meters, MOIRE's membrane optic "lens" would be the largest telescope optics ever made and dwarf the traditional glass mirrors used in the world's most famous telescopes.
Space telescope size comparison (click image to enlarge) - (copyright DARPA)
