The Dark Energy Space Telescope (DESTINY) is one of several mission concepts vying to be selected as the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM), part of NASA’s Beyond Einstein program. JDEM, a collaborative effort between NASA and the Department of Energy, will study “dark energy” - a mysterious substance that physicists theorize comprises over 70% of Universe.

DESTINY will study dark energy by examining Type 1a supernovae from an orbit around the Sun-Earth L2 libration point. During FY08, Flight Dynamics Engineers supported the DESTINY proposal effort by providing analysis of the Delta V budget required to fulfill mission requirements. In doing this, an automated script using Matlab and Satellite Tool Kit™ was developed to examine the solution space of libration point orbits for a given launch day. This automated script will be extremely useful for future libration point mission studies. In addition to the ?V budget, a full lifecycle (Phase A through End-of-Life) cost estimate was prepared.

Future efforts will be to continue providing Flight Dynamics engineering expertise as the DESTINY team prepares its proposal to respond to a JDEM announcement of opportunity that is expected to be released some time in early FY09.