An un-obscured four spherical mirrors based collimator as a tradeoff solution for the Optical Ground Support Equipment (OGSE) of the High Resolution Camera (HRIC) of Simbio-Sys

The authors present the tradeoff and the merit criteria that lead to the selection of the M. Brunn [1] un obscured four mirrors based telescope as the collimator of the Optical Ground Support Equipment in the frame of the Assembly Integration and Verification (AIV) activities forecast for the optical characterization of the High Resolution Camera (HRIC) on board of the Simbio-sys mission to Mercury, instrument currently under development and manufacturing at Selex Galileo (SG) facilities in its Florence site. Several optical configurations have been accounted for the design and manufacturing of the three meters focal length, diffraction limited and wide field of view (0.4X0.6 degs) toolkit. From the classical un obscured systems such as the aspheric solution based onto two hyperbolic mirror, working under an f - number of 13.6, the Brunn solution revealed excellent optical quality free from coma, astigmatism and spherical aberration accomplished by an ultra compact design in within a volume of 1.2x1.0 x0.5 cubic meters and other basic advantages such as the relative easy way in aligning and manufacturing the mirrors. © (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.