Roman space telescope coronagraph: engineering design and operating concept
Ilya Poberezhskiy, T. S. Luchik, Feng Zhao, M. A. Frerking, Scott A. Basinger, Eric Cady, M. M. Colavita, Brandon Creager, Nanaz Fathpour, Renaud Goullioud, Tyler D. Groff, Patrick Morrissey, Joshua Kempenaar, Brian Kern, T. Koch, John Krist, Fai Mok, David Muliere, B. Nemati, A. J. Eldorado Riggs, Byoung-Joon Seo, Fang Shi, Belinda Shreckengost, John Steeves, Hong Tang
Abstract
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (formerly known as WFIRST) is a flagship astrophysics mission planned for launch in 2025. The coronagraph instrument (CGI) on Roman will demonstrate the technology for direct imaging and spectroscopy of exoplanets around nearby stars. It will work with the 2.4-meter diameter telescope to achieve starlight suppression that is 2-3 orders of magnitude deeper than previous space-based and ground-based coronagraphs by using active wavefront control in space with deformable mirrors. CGI has passed its Preliminary Design Review (PDR) in September 2019 and is working toward the instrument Critical Design Review (CDR) in the spring of 2021. We describe the CGI engineering design going into CDR and the operational concept planned for CGI observations.