Joseph Bishop, SSgt. The bands are separated by dichroic mirrors that direct the visible channel into a cooled enclosure and the infrared channels into a common cryogenic Dewar.
Interference filters separate each band into multiple subbands.
A novel background suppression technique uses array data and a circular scan generated by the telescope secondary. The ARS design meets challenges in volume constraint on the trunnion, a low vibration cryogenic system, thermal dissipation control, internal calibration, remotely operating four integrated focal plane arrays, high frame rates with their attendant large data handling and processing requirements, and integration into an observatory wide control system. This paper describes the design, integration, and first light test results of the ARS at the AEOS facility. Figure 1 shows the AEOS site. Mission Research Corporation is the prime contractor for the ARS, and designed, built, and integrated the system with the telescope and facility.