Confirmation of Candidature - Candidate : Tom Patton

In 2017, an astrophysics mission was awarded to a team of scientists and engineers at CU-LASP with the moniker of "NASA's first exoplanet spectroscopy mission". This exoplanet spectroscopy mission, dubbed CUTE (the Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment), is used to search for signatures of atmospheric escape, the process by which constituent gasses depart a planetary atmosphere, shaping the planet's evolution. The signs of escape are detectable around close-in planets due to the high level of UV radiation from their parent stars. CUTE is a 6U CubeSat developed and operated by CU-LASP at Boulder, Colorado and used to look for signs of atmospheric escape by surveying close in extrasolar planets in the near-UV (2487-3376 Å) with 208 x 84 mm Cassegrain telescope fed UV-enhanced CCD. Funded through the NASA ROSES program and forced to deal with a worldwide pandemic at the heart of its fabrication and test program, CUTE nevertheless delivered on the promise of returning useful exoplanet spectroscopy data as NASA’s first UV astronomy CubeSat. The tribulations suffered by the CUTE spacecraft project were overcome to achieve a successful science program observing the interaction of an exoplanetary atmosphere with its host star for lasting scientific returns. This thesis will describe CUTE’s science goals, development program, and initial results, and collate the lessons learned. These lessons in turn can guide the design of a next-generation mission (tentatively dubbed "Super-CUTE") to provide enhanced exoplanet science.

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