The Big Occulting Steerable Satellite (BOSS)

The Big Occulting Steerable Satellite (BOSS) is a concept for a mission to improve the high contrast and high resolution capabilities of the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST). The objective of BOSS is to facilitate the separation of dim objects (such as planets) from nearby bright objects (such as stars) by occulting the bright source, and to improve the resolution of closely spaced objects of comparable brightness (e.g., binary stars, microlensing events, etc.) by slowly transiting the source. The authors describe the current design of the BOSS, its optical performance: and the outstanding technical issues. They show how NGST in conjunction with BOSS could detect Earth-like planets out to at least 5 pc, and Jovian planets well beyond 10 pc.