<title>Deployable space telescopes for planetary and astronomical missions</title>

Abstract

A telescope folded into minimum volume for launching can be a powerful technique for maximizing the aperture size that can be accommodated in a given launch vehicle shroud. As an example we show our concept for a Folded Astronomical Space Telescope where a 2.4-m Hubble Space Telescope class of telescope can be packaged in a 1.5-m diameter cylinder. The enabling rationale, general configuration, and optical system technologies for such a telescope will be presented.