THE OVERVIEW OF THE PLANETARY ATMOSPHERIC SPECTRAL TELESCOPE (PAST) IN THE SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTAL SYSTEM IN NEAR-SPACE (SENSE)

Abstract. To investigate mass transport and energy dissipation in space environments for solar system planet, a balloon-borne planetary atmospheric spectral telescope (PAST) is designed with 0.8-m aperture in spectral range from 280 nm to 680 nm will be floated at 35–40 km altitude to observe and investigate the global space environment of Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter. The telescope is designed by Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CIOMP, CAS), and supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences, that is the Scientific Experimental system in Near-SpacE (SENSE). The telescope is mainly supported by a Ritchey-Chrétien optical system which can achieve 0.5" angular resolution observation, and the optical system has the function of focusing and stabilizing. The telescope is combined with a two-dimension rotate platform to achieve planetary atmospheric imaging in long exposure time. This paper mainly introduces the PAST scheme briefly.