Planets outside of our solar system (exoplanets) are very dim and close to their host stars. The light from those stars needs to be suppressed by a factor of 10^10 in order for us to directly observe an Earth-like planet and determine whether it is habitable. To maintain such an extreme contrast for many hours of observation while avoiding atmospheric disturbances, telescopes will be launched into space with dedicated optics (coronagraphs). Even in the vacuum of space, thermal instabilities of the telescope's structure will cause wavefront aberrations of a fraction of a wavelength that would be detrimental to a 10^10 contrast. This talk outlines approaches to mitigating wavefront instability: How to use light in front and behind the coronagraph to estimate the wavefront? How to correct it using deformable mirrors? How to incorporate telescope maneuvers and deformable mirror commands in image post-processing? By how much do these approaches improve science yield?

Leonid is a postdoc at the Space Telecommunications, Astronomy and Radiation (STAR) Laboratory at MIT. His research interests include wavefront sensing and control, direct imaging and characterization of exosolar systems, reduced-order modeling, and estimation theory. Leonid received a PhD in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University.