Key aspects in the design of a synthetic aperture optics space telescope for wide field imaging

discuss the three specific elements of synthetic aperture space telescopes for wide field imaging: aperture configuration, cophasing and image restoration. The best configuration can be derived under constraints such as the sought resolution, the collecting surface, the number of telescopes. The field to resolution ratio gives rules for optical design and a new focal-plane algorithm is presented to simultaneously measure piston and tilt on each pupil. A novel restoration method is presented in order to take into account the imperfect knowledge of the point spread function. We illustrate results obtained with a simulation and conclude that wide held imaging by synthetic aperture is a realistic goal.