MIT project gets launch, space tests; Goal is to improve telescope images

Stargazing is about to get a lot more focused.

Last week, a team of local scientists delivered to NASA the first installment of an ambitious satellite experiment that seeks to transform the way distant planets are photographed.

The Synchronized Position Hold, Engage and Reorient Experimental Studies was created in 1999 by a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology undergraduate students. Over the course of three semesters, the students teamed up with scientists from Payload Systems Inc., a Cambridge-based aerospace firm, to design, build and test prototypes of miniature satellites to study flight maneuvers that may help researchers develop ways to coordinate a network of satellites to perform a single task.

The results of the $2 million experiment could pave the way for the creation of a powerful telescope that can produce more detailed photographs of distant planets by using a series of smaller satellites instead of one large telescope such as the Hubble.

“Imagine a series of Hubble space telescopes, and they all look at the exact same object and the lights from those telescopes are combined to make one super-detailed image,” said Steve Sell, SPHERES project manager.

Three miniature satellites, the size of bowling balls, are expected to be carried by space shuttle next year to be tested aboard the International Space Station.

The devices, powered by double A batteries and equipped with sensors, would mimic the movements of actual satellites in space and allow scientists to experiment and analyze computer programs within the controlled environment of the station.

“Rather than trying these algorithms out for the first time on the multibillion-dollar spacecraft, the idea is we can fly these (SPHERES) and try them out inside the space station, where there are crew members there to hit the reset button or get them if they fly off,” Sell said.

One of the MIT undergrads who worked on the project, Stephanie Chen, joined Payload Systems after graduating in 2000 so she could see it to fruition.

“It was really interesting to have the experience going from seeing something on a sheet of paper all the way through to putting it on a shuttle and operating it on the space station,” she said.