No abstract
The Johns Hopkins University sounding rocket group has completed the assembly and calibration of the Farultraviolet Off Rowland-circle Telescope for Imaging and Spectroscopy (FORTIS); a sounding rocket borne multi-object spectro-telescope designed to provide spectral coverage of up to 43 separate targets in the 900 -1800 Angstrom bandpass over a 30 × 30 field-of-view. FORTIS is capable of selecting the far-UV brightest regions of the target area by utilizing an autonomous targeting system. Medium resolution (R ∼ 400) spectra are recorded in redundant dual-order spectroscopic channels with ∼40 cm 2 of effective area at 1216Å. The maiden launch of FORTIS occurred on May 10, 2013 out of the White Sands Missile Range, targeting the extended spiral galaxy M61 and nearby companion NGC 4301. We report on the final flight calibrations of the instrument, as well as the flight results.
The New Worlds, New Horizons report released by the Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey Board in 2010 listed the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) as the highest-priority large space mission for the coming decade. This observatory will provide wide-field imaging and slitless spectroscopy at near infrared wavelengths. The scientific goals are to obtain a statistical census of exoplanets using gravitational microlensing, measure the expansion history of and the growth of structure in the Universe by multiple methods, and perform other astronomical surveys to be selected through a guest observer program. A Science Definition Team has been established to assist NASA in the development of a Design Reference Mission that accomplishes this diverse array of science programs with a single observatory. In this paper we present the current WFIRST payload concept and the expected capabilities for planet detection. The observatory, with science goals that are complimentary to the Kepler exoplanet transit mission, is designed to complete the statistical census of planetary systems in the Galaxy, from habitable Earth-mass planets to free floating planets, including analogs to all of the planets in our Solar System except Mercury. The exoplanet microlensing survey will observe for 500 days spanning 5 years. This long temporal baseline will enable the determination of the masses for most detected exoplanets down to 0.1 Earth masses.
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