Paper
12 July 2008 Verification of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) wavefront sensing and control system
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Abstract
From its orbit around the Earth-Sun second Lagrange point some million miles from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be uniquely suited to study early galaxy and star formation with its suite of infrared instruments.[1] To maintain exceptional image quality using its 6.6 meter segmented primary mirror, wavefront sensing and control (WFS&C) is vital to ensure the optical alignment of the telescope throughout the mission. After deployment of the observatory structure and mirrors from the "folded" launch configuration, WFS&C is used to align the telescope[2], as well as maintain that alignment. WFS&C verification includes the verification of the software and its incorporated algorithms, along with the supporting aspects of the integrated ground segment, instrumentation, and telescope through increasing levels of assembly. The software and process are verified with the Integrated Telescope Model (ITM), which is a Matlab/Simulink integrated observatory model which interfaces to CodeV/OSLO/IDL. In addition to lower level testing, the Near-Infrared Camera[3] (NIRCam) with its wavefront sensing optical components is verified with the other instruments with a cryogenic optical telescope simulator (OSIM) before moving on to the final WFS&C testing in Chamber A at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) where additional observatory verification occurs.
© (2008) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Adam R. Contos, D. Scott Acton, Allison A. Barto, Laura A. Burns, James Contreras, Bruce Dean, Erin Elliott, Lee Feinberg, Karl Hansen, Bruce Hardy, William Hayden, J. Scott Knight, Paul A. Lightsey, Carl Starr, and Joseph Sullivan "Verification of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) wavefront sensing and control system", Proc. SPIE 7010, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2008: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter, 70100S (12 July 2008); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.786984
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Cited by 11 scholarly publications.
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KEYWORDS
James Webb Space Telescope

Mirrors

Space telescopes

Telescopes

Interfaces

Calibration

Wavefront sensors

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