Free Astronomy Magazine May-June 2016

SPACE CHRONICLES W ide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope front view. [NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab] “In addition to its exciting capabili- ties for dark energy and exoplanets, WFIRST will provide a treasure trove of exquisite data for all astrono- mers,” said Neil Gehrels, WFIRST project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “This mission will survey the universe to find the most inter- esting objects out there.” WFIRST is slated to launch in the mid-2020s. The observatory will be- gin operations after traveling to a gravitational balance point known as Earth-Sun L2, which is located about one million miles from Earth in a direction directly opposite the Sun. WFIRST is managed at God- dard, with participation by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California; the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland; the Infra- red Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), also in Pasadena; and a science team comprised of mem- bers from U.S. research institutions across the country. The leading members of the science team, to- gether with NASA and science cen- ters representatives, make up the FSWG. “The WFIRST mission will provide tremendous synergy with Hubble and Webb,” STScI director Ken Sembach said. “It will extend the legacy of Hubble-quality im- aging to much wider fields, and will likely find many unique objects suit- able for detailed follow-up study by Webb.” STScI is the science opera- tions center for both the Hubble and Webb telescopes. It will also be a partner in the WFIRST science center, sharing science operations responsibilities with Goddard and IPAC. STScI astronomers are also re- presented on the WFIRST science team and the FSWG. During the mission formulation phase, STScI's work will focus on the mission's observation scheduling system, wide-field imaging data processing system, and the data ar- chive. The Barbara A. Mikulski Ar- chive for Space Telescopes (MAST) at STScI already holds the astronomi- cal data from some 20 astronomy missions, and the addition of the WFIRST data will add considerably to its scientific discovery potential. “We are proud that NASA has made us a partner in this revolutionary new mission,” said Roeland van der Marel, the WFIRST mission lead at STScI. “Our expertise with the Hub- ble and Webb space telescopes puts us in a unique position to support the science teams and the astronom- ical community, and to make this mission a success. The new observa- tions and discoveries are guaran- teed to be spectacular.” n