Technology development towards WFIRST-AFTA coronagraph

Ilya Poberezhskiy; Feng Zhao; Xin An; Kunjithapatham Balasubramanian; Ruslan Belikov; Eric Cady; Richard Demers; Rosemary Diaz; Qian Gong; Brian Gordon; Renaud Goullioud; Frank Greer; Olivier Guyon; Michael Hoenk; N. Jeremy Kasdin; Brian Kern; John Krist; Andreas Kuhnert; Michael McElwain; Bertrand Mennesson; Dwight Moody; Richard Muller; Bijan Nemati; Keith Patterson; A. J. Riggs; Daniel Ryan; Byoung-Joon Seo; Stuart Shaklan; Erkin Sidick; Fang Shi; Nicholas Siegler; Rémi Soummer; Hong Tang; John Trauger; J. Kent Wallace; Xu Wang; Victor White; Daniel Wilson; Karl Yee; Hanying Zhou; Neil Zimmerman

doi:10.1117/12.2060320

2 August 2014 Technology development towards WFIRST-AFTA coronagraph

Ilya Poberezhskiy, Feng Zhao, Xin An, Kunjithapatham Balasubramanian, Ruslan Belikov, Eric Cady, Richard Demers, Rosemary Diaz, Qian Gong, Brian Gordon, Renaud Goullioud, Frank Greer, Olivier Guyon, Michael Hoenk, N. Jeremy Kasdin, Brian Kern, John Krist, Andreas Kuhnert, Michael McElwain, Bertrand Mennesson, Dwight Moody, Richard Muller, Bijan Nemati, Keith Patterson, A. J. Riggs, Daniel Ryan, Byoung-Joon Seo, Stuart Shaklan, Erkin Sidick, Fang Shi, Nicholas Siegler, Rémi Soummer, Hong Tang, John Trauger, J. Kent Wallace, Xu Wang, Victor White, Daniel Wilson, Karl Yee, Hanying Zhou, Neil Zimmerman

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 9143, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2014: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave; 91430P (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2060320
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2014, Montréal, Quebec, Canada

Abstract

NASA’s WFIRST-AFTA mission concept includes the first high-contrast stellar coronagraph in space. This coronagraph will be capable of directly imaging and spectrally characterizing giant exoplanets similar to Neptune and Jupiter, and possibly even super-Earths, around nearby stars. In this paper we present the plan for maturing coronagraph technology to TRL5 in 2014-2016, and the results achieved in the first 6 months of the technology development work. The specific areas that are discussed include coronagraph testbed demonstrations in static and simulated dynamic environment, design and fabrication of occulting masks and apodizers used for starlight suppression, low-order wavefront sensing and control subsystem, deformable mirrors, ultra-low-noise spectrograph detector, and data post-processing.

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Ilya Poberezhskiy, Feng Zhao, Xin An, Kunjithapatham Balasubramanian, Ruslan Belikov, Eric Cady, Richard Demers, Rosemary Diaz, Qian Gong, Brian Gordon, Renaud Goullioud, Frank Greer, Olivier Guyon, Michael Hoenk, N. Jeremy Kasdin, Brian Kern, John Krist, Andreas Kuhnert, Michael McElwain, Bertrand Mennesson, Dwight Moody, Richard Muller, Bijan Nemati, Keith Patterson, A. J. Riggs, Daniel Ryan, Byoung-Joon Seo, Stuart Shaklan, Erkin Sidick, Fang Shi, Nicholas Siegler, Rémi Soummer, Hong Tang, John Trauger, J. Kent Wallace, Xu Wang, Victor White, Daniel Wilson, Karl Yee, Hanying Zhou, and Neil Zimmerman "Technology development towards WFIRST-AFTA coronagraph", Proc. SPIE 9143, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2014: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave, 91430P (2 August 2014); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2060320

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