Abstract

Large space telescopes are needed to tackle some of the pressing questions in earth observation and astronomy. SuperSharp Space Systems is a spin out company from the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy developing unfolding, self aligning space telescopes for Earth Observation and Universe Exploration.

In this talk Dr George Hawker, CTO of Supersharp will explain how they are developing technology that fits a 4x larger telescope in a given satellite volume using robotic deployment and novel autonomous alignment techniques that automatically and continuously position the telescope optics accurately to better than 100th the width of a human hair. He will also talk about use cases and their road map to orbit.

Dr Hawker is a Co-founder of SuperSharp and postdoc at the University of Cambridge, working on high resolution space telescopes for Earth observation. He’s an optical engineer and entrepreneur with a background in astronomy, data science and exoplanet research having completed his PhD at the Institute of Astronomy in 2021.