The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a 6.5 m diameter, passively cooled, deployable telescope that will orbit the Lagrange 2 Earth–Sun point beginning in 2018. NASA is leading the development of the JWST mission with their partners, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

    The Canadian contribution to the mission is the Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) and the Near‐Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS).

    The FGS will produce a stream of guide star centroids that drive the Fine Steering Mirror (FSM). The movement of the FSM, located at the pupil of the telescope, will provide the line of sight pointing and stabilization.

    The NIRISS has four observing modes: 1) broadband imaging 2) wide‐field slitless spectroscopy at a resolving power of ˜150 between 1 and 2.5 µm, 3) single‐object cross‐dispersed slitless spectroscopy enabling simultaneous wavelength coverage between 0.7 and 2.5 µm at R˜660, a mode optimized for transit spectroscopy of relatively bright (J > 7) stars and, 4) sparse aperture interferometric imaging between 3.8 and 4.8 µm enabling high‐contrast (˜10 ‐4) imaging of M < 8 point sources at angular separations between 70 and 500 milli‐arcsec.

    This chapter presents an overview of the FGS/NIRISS design with a focus on the scientific capabilities and performance.


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    Title :

    JWST Fine Guidance Sensor and Near‐Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2015-12-10


    Size :

    25 pages




    Type of media :

    Article/Chapter (Book)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English





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