
Wfirst, the Space Telescope with the Power of 100 Hubbles - KasianFranks
https://www.universetoday.com/141528/meeet-wfirst-the-space-telescope-with-the-power-of-100-hubbles/
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rootbear
The lab I work in at NASA Goddard is doing the detector characterization for
WFIRST. There are 18, 4k × 4K detectors in the WFIRST array, for a resolution
of about 300 megapixels, as mentioned in the article. The detectors are
arranged in an unusual pattern, but I don't know what drove that design. I am,
at this moment, working on a new fileserver that will be used for WFIRST
detector test data. It will start off with a RAID array of just under 1PB and
will likely be expanded as we proceed with testing.

I'm hoping this thing launches before I retire, but I'm not betting on it.
JWST keeps eating our budget.

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traskjd
Quietly hoping you’re about 64 years old.

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rootbear
Just 61-1/2! But I may not wait until my official retirement age of 66-1/2,
which I'll reach at the end of 2023. I don't seriously believe that WFIRST
will launch before then anyway. I'm not even sure our other major project,
Euclid (an ESA telescope) will launch before I'm retired, and it's much
further along.

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jws
_…and the addition of one of the most sensitive coronagraphs ever made…_

I find it interesting that one of the major improvements in this light
gathering instrument is a device to physically block light from getting into
the instrument.

For Earthlings viewing the Sun a chronograph is a disk on a stick to block the
Sun's surface so you can see the corona.

In a space based telescope blocking out a star but not any planets which might
be orbiting it becomes complicated. They have intricate computer generated
masks designed to block the starlight and the interference patterns created by
the edge of the primary mask implemented as mirrors on black silicon.

I wasn't able to find a published paper on the design, there are several
available as abstracts but not viewable by me. This presentation from Caltech
covers a lot of it and is probably accessible to people in the field.
[http://kiss.caltech.edu/special_events/JPL_MPIA/presentation...](http://kiss.caltech.edu/special_events/JPL_MPIA/presentations/2_Trauger.pdf)

My takeaway was that compared to the Hubble, they should be able to block 100
times more starlight relative to the planets and should be able to directly
see planets illuminated by their star.

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ausbah
>"found that they had a couple huge telescopes just sitting around in a black-
site warehouse somewhere"

i don't know what is the worse implication, the amount of bureaucracy capable
of losing a space telescope or the other technology the NRO and other gov't
agencies have hidden from the public view

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sp332
They didn't say they were lost. Maybe they have even better ones now and these
are obsolete in the spy business.

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ttul
This is basically the case here. NRO has newer stuff that is better. Also,
they’ve switched to more SAR instead of visual spectrum stuff.

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melling
“Despite having the same size mirror as the surprisingly reliable Hubble Space
Telescope, clocking in at 2.4 meters across, this puppy will pack a punch with
a gigantic 300 megapixel camera, enabling it to snap a single image with an
area a hundred times greater than the Hubble.”

Sounds like we need to retrofit the camera on the Hubble.

As Hubble nears its EOL, maybe some crazy billionaire will come up with a plan
to keep it around for another 25 years.

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_ph_
The problem with Hubble is not so much funding, but that the hardware is
dying, especially the gyroscopes. Without the space shuttle, no one can just
fly out to service it. It would be easier to launch a replacement telescope.

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melling
Yes, everyone already knows that!

That's where the crazy billionaire comes in. He doesn't tell us why it can't
be done, he figures out how to do it.

electric car company... rockets that land and are reused...

I imagine that you could do it with advanced robotics. Could happen over the
next decade.

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_ph_
Or one just builds a new telescope and puts it onto a F9.

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melling
A new Hubble costs a couple of billion? James Webb is over $10 billion.

A few small robotic drones could hitch a ride on a regular launch. Mission
cost of $10 million?

We simply need to wait for robots to develop and hope it happens before Hubble
disintegrates.

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dogma1138
It’s nice to see that the donated NRO satellite buses found a use i remember
when they were initially donated everyone cried that NASA didn’t had the
budget to make any use of them.

I wonder what else do they have lying around, since it’s clear that what they
have now is more advanced than what they’ve donated.

I also wonder with the advancement in SAR technology how much longer would
optical recon sattlites would even be used for because as long as the NRO
still uses optical sattlites we have some sort of economy of scale that can be
leveraged for cheaper space based telescopes.

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kuhhk
I was curious if this would beat James Webb to space, but this is targeted for
middle of the 2020s while NASA appears to be pushing for James Webb to get up
to space in the next couple years. Fingers crossed!

> In testimony before Congress in July 2018, NASA administrator Jim
> Bridenstine proposed slowing down the development of WFIRST in order to
> accommodate a cost increase in the James Webb Space Telescope, which would
> result in decreased funding for WFIRST in 2020/2021.

Source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Field_Infrared_Survey_Tel...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Field_Infrared_Survey_Telescope)

