WFIRST low order wavefront sensing and control dynamic testbed performance under the flight like photon flux

Fang Shi; Byoung-Joon Seo; Eric Cady; Brian Kern; Raymond Lam; David Marx; Keith Patterson; Camilo Mejia Prada; John Shaw; Chris Shelton; Joel Shields; Hong Tang; Tuan Truong

doi:10.1117/12.2312746

30 July 2018 WFIRST low order wavefront sensing and control dynamic testbed performance under the flight like photon flux

Fang Shi, Byoung-Joon Seo, Eric Cady, Brian Kern, Raymond Lam, David Marx, Keith Patterson, Camilo Mejia Prada, John Shaw, Chris Shelton, Joel Shields, Hong Tang, Tuan Truong

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10698, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave; 106982O (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2312746
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2018, Austin, Texas, United States

Abstract

To maintain the required performance for the WFIRST Coronagraph Instrument (CGI) in a realistic space environment, a Low Order Wavefront Sensing and Control (LOWFS/C) subsystem is necessary. The WFIRST CGI LOWFS/C subsystem will use the Zernike wavefront sensor, which has a phase-shifting disk combined with the coronagraph’s focal plane mask, to sense the low-order wavefront drift and line-of-sight (LoS) error using the rejected starlight. The dynamic tests on JPL’s Occulting Mask Coronagraph (OMC) Testbed have demonstrated that LOWFS/C can maintain coronagraph contrast to better than 10^-8 in presence of WFIRST-like line of sight and low order wavefront disturbances in both Shaped Pupil Coronagraph (SPC) and Hybrid Lyot Coronagraph (HLC) modes. However, the previous dynamic tests have been done using a bright source with photon flux equivalent to stellar magnitude of MV = -3.5. The LOWFS/C technology development on the OMC testbed has since then concentrated in evaluating and improving the LOWFS/C performance under the realistic photon flux that is equivalent to WFIRST Coronagraph target stars. Our recent testbed tests have demonstrated that the LOWFS/C can work cohesively with the stellar light suppression wavefront control, which brings broad band coronagraph contrast from ~1x10^-6 to 6x10^-9, while LOWF/C is simultaneously suppressing the WFIRST like LoS and low order wavefront drift disturbances on a source that photon flux is equivalent to a MV = 2 star. This lab demonstration mimics the CGI initial dark hole establish process on a bright reference star. We have also demonstrated on the testbed that LOWFS/C can maintain the coronagraph contrast by suppressing the WFIRST like line-of-sight disturbances on a fainter MV = 5 star. This mimics scenario of CGI science target observations. In this paper we will present the recent dynamic testbed performance results of LOWFS/C LoS loops and low order wavefront error correction loop on the flight like photon flux.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Fang Shi, Byoung-Joon Seo, Eric Cady, Brian Kern, Raymond Lam, David Marx, Keith Patterson, Camilo Mejia Prada, John Shaw, Chris Shelton, Joel Shields, Hong Tang, and Tuan Truong "WFIRST low order wavefront sensing and control dynamic testbed performance under the flight like photon flux", Proc. SPIE 10698, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave, 106982O (30 July 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2312746

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