The TOLIMAN Mission: A Low-cost Space Telescope For High Precision Narrow-angle Astrometry

The TOLIMAN project is engaged with the construction, launch and operation of a low-cost space telescope of unorthodox optical design. Its primary science goal targets an exhaustive search for temperate-orbit rocky planets around either star in the alpha Centauri AB binary within our nearest-neighbor star system.

Despite their favorable proximity and brightness, the detection of terrestrial exoplanets around such nearby Sun-like stars remains problematic for contemporary instrumental approaches.

By performing narrow-angle astrometric monitoring of binary stars at extreme precision, any exoplanets will betray their presence by way of gravitationally-induced perturbations on the binary orbit. Recovery of this signal is challenging for it amounts to only a few microarcseconds of angular deflection (at best), and so is normally thought to require a large (meter-class) instrument. By implementing an innovative optical and signal encoding architecture, the TOLIMAN space telescope aims to recover such signals with a telescope aperture of only 12.5cm.

This paper gives an overview of key features of the mission; in particular the concepts underlying the optics to enable image registration at the extreme levels of precision required. An outline is also provided, sketching further mission components and systems incorporated into the 16U CubeSat spacecraft bus in which the science payload is housed – all of which are now under construction.

Peter Tuthill, Christopher Betters, Max Charles, Fred Crous, Donald G. Dansereau, Conaire Deagan, Louis Desdoigts, Mark George, Thomas Holland, Connor J. Langford, Milo Langker, Kieran Larkin, Clarissa Luk, Jack Nelson, Benjamin Pope, Grace Piroscia, Angus Rutherford, David Sweeney, Adam Taras, Karel Valenta, Tim White, Alison Wong, Eduardo Bendek, David Doelman, Kyran Grattan, Olivier Guyon, Peter Klupar, Benjamin T. Montet, Jeffrey Smith, Douglas Caldwell, Frans Snik, Simon P. Worden

Comments: 27 pages , 7 figures. To be published in JATIS (Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems)
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Cite as: arXiv:2603.14683 [astro-ph.IM](or arXiv:2603.14683v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.14683
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Submission history
From: Peter Tuthill
[v1] Mon, 16 Mar 2026 00:40:04 UTC (19,729 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.14683
Astrobiology, exoplanet,