Wide-Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST) Final Report

TL;DR

The WFIRST Final Report details NASA's design reference missions for the space telescope, focusing on mission planning, cost reduction, and avoiding overlap with other major astronomical observatories.

Contribution

It provides two detailed design reference missions (DRM1 and DRM2) that optimize WFIRST's capabilities and costs while ensuring complementarity with other space and ground-based telescopes.

Findings

DRM1 is a finalized, cost-optimized mission design.

DRM2 eliminates overlapping capabilities with JWST, Euclid, and LSST.

Both DRMs aim to maximize scientific return within budget constraints.

Abstract

In December 2010, NASA created a Science Definition Team (SDT) for WFIRST, the Wide Field Infra-Red Survey Telescope, recommended by the Astro 2010 Decadal Survey as the highest priority for a large space mission. The SDT was chartered to work with the WFIRST Project Office at GSFC and the Program Office at JPL to produce a Design Reference Mission (DRM) for WFIRST. Part of the original charge was to produce an interim design reference mission by mid-2011. That document was delivered to NASA and widely circulated within the astronomical community. In late 2011 the Astrophysics Division augmented its original charge, asking for two design reference missions. The first of these, DRM1, was to be a finalized version of the interim DRM, reducing overall mission costs where possible. The second of these, DRM2, was to identify and eliminate capabilities that overlapped with those of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (henceforth JWST), ESA's Euclid mission, and the NSF's ground-based Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (henceforth LSST), and again to reduce overall mission cost, while staying faithful to NWNH. This report presents both DRM1 and DRM2.