Demonstration of high contrast with an obscured aperture with the WFIRST-AFTA shaped pupil coronagraph
Eric Cady, Camilo Mejia Prada, Xin An, Kunjithapatham Balasubramanian,, Rosemary Diaz, N. Jeremy Kasdin, Brian Kern, Andreas Kuhnert, Bijan Nemati,, Ilya Poberezhskiy, A. J. Eldorado Riggs, Robert Zimmer, Neil Zimmerman

TL;DR
This paper reports on achieving high-contrast imaging with a shaped pupil coronagraph on the WFIRST-AFTA mission, demonstrating key technological milestones for future space telescopes.
Contribution
It presents the successful demonstration of a high-contrast shaped pupil coronagraph achieving Milestone 2, advancing the technology readiness for space-based exoplanet imaging.
Findings
Achieved $10^{-8}$ contrast in narrowband testing with static aberrations.
Completed Milestone 2 for the shaped pupil coronagraph.
Plans outlined for broadband Milestone 5.
Abstract
The coronagraph instrument on the WFIRST-AFTA mission study has two coronagraphic architectures, shaped pupil and hybrid Lyot, which may be interchanged for use in different observing scenarios. Each architecture relies on newly-developed mask components to function in the presence of the AFTA aperture, and so both must be matured to a high technology readiness level (TRL) in advance of the mission. A series of milestones were set to track the development of the technologies required for the instrument; in this paper, we report on completion of WFIRST-AFTA Coronagraph Milestone 2---a narrowband contrast test with static aberrations for the shaped pupil---and the plans for the upcoming broadband Coronagraph Milestone 5.
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