Advanced Composite Design of Origami Inspired Deployable Metaoptic LiDAR Aperture

By leveraging advanced remote sensing technologies like LiDAR, scientists can better understand and manage the complex interactions between the Earth's atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere, ultimately contributing to the advancement of Earth science research and applications. Vistar proposes new deployable composite LiDAR telescope structure. Utilizing Meta-optics over conventional mirrors and lenses, these telescopes promise significant advantages over traditional systems from compact stowage within confined spacecraft to swift and precise deployment of larger apertures. Deployable origami inspired apertures offer a solution for multi-element transmissive telescope lens designs, enabling compact packaging and reduced launch costs. The focus of this work will be developing a multi-element metalens housed in a composite structure to serve as the primary collection optic in a transmissive telescope for a lidar instrument. The global LiDAR market has been experiencing significant growth driven by increasing demand for 3D mapping and modeling, urban planning, infrastructure development, autonomous vehicles, and environmental monitoring applications. With affordable space-based LiDAR systems, persistent and affordable access to LiDAR data would enhance the current market and open new commercial markets.