Mirror swarm space telescope

The effectively large mirror size in a space telescope may be achieved by swarms of mirrors. In this paper, we present an analysis of such a space telescope, where a swarm of randomized micro-mirrors are combined to achieve the resolution comparable to a primary mirror equivalent to the entire distribution. The recorded speckle patterns, which vary randomly in time, are transformed into a high resolution image by use of deconvolution techniques. We demonstrate that for a narrow wavelength band, diffraction limited performance (or better) can be achieved for a large effective aperture swarm. Such a swarm mirror space telescope may allow high resolution image formation while potentially allowing a much larger collecting area, more flexibility of control, and lower cost than a single optical element.