Instrumentation for Millimetron -a large space antenna for THz astronomy

Abstract-Millimetron is a Russian-led 12m diameter submillimeter and far-infrared space observatory which is included in the Space Plan of the Russian Federation and funded for launch after 2015. With its large collecting area and state-of-the-art receivers, it will enable unique science and allow at least one order of magnitude improvement with respect to the Herschel Space Observatory. Millimetron is currently in a conceptual design phase carried out by the Astro Space Center in Moscow and SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research. It will use a passively cooled deployable antenna with a high-precision central 3.5m diameter mirror and highprecision antenna petals. The antenna is specified for observations up to ~2 THz over the whole 12m diameter, and to higher frequencies using the central 3.5m solid mirror. Millimetron will be operated in two basic observing modes: as a single-dish observatory, and as an element of a ground-space VLBI system. As single-dish, angular resolutions on the order of 3 to 12 arcsec will be achieved and spectral resolutions of up to 10 6 employing heterodyne techniques. As VLBI antenna, the chosen elliptical orbit will provide extremely large VLBI baselines resulting in micro-arcsec angular resolution. The scientific payload will consist of heterodyne and direct detection instruments covering the most important sub-/millimeter spectral regions (including some ALMA bands) and will build on the Herschel and ALMA heritage

Current status of the Millimetron Space Observatory

We present the current status of the Millimetron Space Observatory (MSO) -international space mission led by Russia. The unprecedented sensitivity and angular resolution of the cryogenically cooled 10-m telescope, placed in a L2 orbit, will provide unique capabilities for millimeter, submillimeter and FIR astronomy and astrophysics. There will be no cryogenic liquids on board, which will reduce the mass of the observatory. Instead the mission will be cooled passively by heat shields and actively by mechanical coolers. That combination will enable achieve on the observatory mirrors temperature less than 10K. One of the exciting opportunities is the possibility of MSO working in two different modes - as a single dish observatory and as an element of Earth-space VLBI system. The MSO payload equipment includes two direct detection instruments complemented by several heterodyne instruments. All of them are based on the state-of-the-art components. The current status of the MSO will be presented

Millimetron - a large Russian-European submillimeter space observatory

Millimetron is a Russian-led 12 m diameter submillimeter and far-infrared space observatory which is included in the Space Plan of the Russian Federation for launch around 2017. With its large collecting area and state-of-the-art receivers, it will enable unique science and allow at least one order of magnitude improvement with respect to the Herschel Space Observatory. Millimetron will be operated in two basic observing modes: as a single-dish observatory, and as an element of a ground-space very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) system. As single-dish, angular resolutions on the order of 3 to 12 arc sec will be achieved and spectral resolutions of up to a million employing heterodyne techniques. As VLBI antenna, the chosen elliptical orbit will provide extremely large VLBI baselines (beyond 300,000 km) resulting in micro-arc second angular resolution