Payload Module
 Image credit: Airbus Defence & Space |
The Payload Module (PLM) comprises the telescope, the PLM thermal control system, the Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS), the VIS and NISP instruments (delivered to Airbus Defence and Space division by the Euclid Consortium) and the detectors (delivered by ESA). It is developed under the responsibility of Airbus Defence and Space.
The Euclid telescope is a 1.2 m on-axis 3-mirror Korsch cold telescope providing a field of view of 1.25 × 0.727 deg2.
Both instruments share a large common field of view. VIS provides high quality images to carry out the weak lensing galaxy shear measurements. NISP performs imaging photometry to provide near-infrared photometric measurements for photometric redshifts, and also carries out slitless spectroscopy to obtain spectroscopic redshifts.