A solar gravitational lens will be humanity's most powerful telescope (2022)

> In 2020, Turyshev presented his idea of Direct Multi-pixel Imaging and Spectroscopy of an Exoplanet with a Solar Gravitational Lens Mission. The lens could reconstruct the exoplanet image with ~25 km-scale surface resolution in 6 months of integration time, enough to see surface features and signs of habitability. His proposal was selected for the Phase III of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts. Turyshev proposes to use realistic-sized solar sails (~16 vanes of 10^3 m^2) to achieve the needed high velocity at perihelion (~150 km/sec), reaching 547 AU in 17 years.

> In 2023, a team of scientists led by Turychev proposed the Sundiver concept,[1] whereby a solar sail craft can serve as a modular platform for various instruments and missions, including rendezvous with other Sundivers for resupply, in a variety of different self-sustaining orbits reaching velocities of ~5-10 AU/yr.

Here is an interview with him laying out the entire plan.[2] It is the most interesting interview that I have seen in years, possibly ever.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slava_Turyshev#Work

[1] https://www2.mpia-hd.mpg.de/~calj/sundiver.pdf

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqzJewjZUkk

It might be compressed for transmission, but raw data (warts and all) is king .. once it's "processed" and raw data is discarded .. there's no recovering the raw.

Years later raw data can be reprocessed with new algorithms, faster processes and combined with other sources to create "better" processed images.

Onboard hardware errors (eg: the historic Hubble Telescope erros) can be "corrected" later on the ground with an elaborate backpropagated trandfer function that optimally "fixes" the error, etc.

Data errors (spikes in cell values, glitches from cosmic rays, etc) can be combed out of the raw in post .. if smart people have access to the raw.

Baking processing into on board instrument processing prior to transmission isn't a good procedure.