The European Space Agency's EUCLID mission will study the dark universe using spectroscopy. A possible solution might be based on DMD technology and Visitech was awarded an evaluation program to test if the DMD technology could endure the extreme space environment.
Part of the evaluation program has been to test a DMD in sub freezing temperatures in vacuum conditions and to test the behaviour of the DMD during radiation. VISITECH's detailed knowledge and experience has proved very valuable for this project and resulted in a test platform that allowed the micro mirrors on the DMD to be locked in one position for 1500 seconds at a time. VISITECH has been prime for this project and has had extensive collaboration with several sub contractors throughout Europe. Together with one of the sub contractors, the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille in France, a paper was submitted to the SPIE Photonics West 2010 conference in San Francisco. The results indicates no known show stoppers for the program.
For more information, visit https://spacecomponents.org/public/development/MNT/dlpeval.pdf.