Space Telescopes & Imaging
Orbital thermal cycling induces focus shift and wavefront error.
STOPtima predicts mirror deformation and Strehl degradation across the full mission thermal profile — before the mirror is figured.
Earth Observation & Polarimetry
Stress-induced birefringence and thermal GRIN silently erode contrast and polarization fidelity.
STOPtima models these hidden effects natively.
Laser Communication & LIDAR
Tight beam pointing and phase stability are mission-critical.
Coherent, phase-preserving propagation through deformed, heated optics validates your link budget under real environments.
Active & Adaptive Optics
The instrument is no longer passive — it senses, reacts, and corrects.
STOPtima co-simulates sensors, piezo actuators, MEMS/MOEMS, and control loops, delivering the residual wavefront after active correction.
The Cost of Skipping STOP
The most expensive lessons in space optics share a single root cause: thermal and structural perturbations that were never coupled to the optical prescription. These missions did not fail optically — they degraded silently, one micron at a time.
| Mission | Observed Issue | Root Cause |
| Hubble | Periodic focus drift, Strehl drop (0.9 → 0.7) | Unmodelled orbital thermal cycling |
| Kepler | Photometric precision degraded | Thermal drift unpredicted on ground |
| BepiColombo (MIXS) | Stray-light contamination | Thermo-mechanical effects on light path |
| Hayabusa2 | Laser altimeter focus shift | Thermal expansion of optical bench |