Wavefront Sensing and Control of the James Webb Space Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a segmented deployable telescope, utilizing 6 degrees of freedom for adjustment of the Secondary Mirror (SM) and 7 degrees of freedom for adjustment of each of its 18 segments in the Primary Mirror (PM). When initially deployed, the optical elements will be positioned to within a few mm…
Advanced Lightweight Mirrors for Space-Based Missions
There are many current and future space-based optical systems that are leveraging large aperture or segmented aperture primary mirrors. The growth in the aperture size is driving demand for new approaches to produce large aperture, space-based optical components and/or mirror segments that are more affordable and with faster manufacturing lead times than traditional optical components…
An Operational Update on GOES-16 and Post-Launch Status of GOES-17
NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) are a mainstay of weather forecasts and environmental monitoring in the United States. The next generation of GOES satellites, known as the GOES-R Series, represents significant advancements in the near real-time observation of severe weather across the Western Hemisphere. The GOES-R satellite, the first in the series that also…
Advanced Observatory Design for the Imaging X-Ray Polarimeter Explorer (IXPE) Mission
Scientist and astronomer’s worldwide have a great interest in exploring the hidden details of some of the most extreme and exotic astronomical objects, such as stellar and supermassive black holes, neutron stars and pulsars. However, one cannot directly image what’s going on near objects like black holes and neutron stars, but studying the polarization of…