Overview:

Darwin is a flotilla of four or five spacecraft that will search for Earth-like planets and analyse their atmospheres for the chemical signatures of life. One spacecraft will be a central communications hub. The other three will function as "light collectors" redirecting light beams to the hub spacecraft.

In addition the flotilla will be able to carry out high-resolution imaging using aperture synthesis, to provide pictures of celestial objects with unprecedented detail.

Objectives:

• detect and analyse Earth-like worlds

• detect atmospheres on thes planets and search for gase that can indicate life

• solce the technological challenges of far infrared interferometric imaging in space

Instrumentation:

For telescopes, each 3 meters in diameter will operate together in a free-flyer formation, with the seperation of the satellites controlled to a few cm, and active optical path compensation systems. maintaining the path difference between the beams of the various telescopes to an accuracy of about 20 nm. (Nulling interferometry)