The Pathfinder Mission

This mission is deliberately modest. Its purpose is to demonstrate the feasibility of x-ray interferometry missions and to learn the realities of building and flying this new class of instrument.

The pathfinder uses the technology that has already been developed for the SIM mission to provide pointing and metrological stability. The baseline is to be small enough that the extreme telescopes can be placed inside a launch shroud without requiring deployment or separate spacecraft. Thus the baseline will be between one and two meters.

This should allow spatial resolution in the vicinity of 100 micro-arcseconds.   While the purpose of the mission is engineering for the missions to follow, it should be able to return some very interesting science in its own right.  See the images of Capella and the AGN at one hundred micro-arcseconds for examples.

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