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The Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) developed by EADS Astrium GmbH for the European Space Agency (ESA) is a spectrograph covering the 0.6-5.0 µm waveband to fly on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). NIRSpec will be primarily operated as a multi-object spectrograph but also includes an integral field unit (IFU) allowing a 3x3 arcsec field of view to be sampled continuously with 0.1 arcsec spatial resolution. The IFU, based on an advanced image slicer concept, is a very compact athermal unit made of aluminium. It contains three 30-element monolithic mirror arrays forming slicer, pupil and slit mirrors, and single-surface image relay and plane fold mirrors, produced using 5-axis diamond-machining techniques. Many of the mirrors have complex surfaces like toric sections with 3 rd -order corrections in order to achieve the required performance within a small allowed volume, and could only have been fabricated with the most advanced free-form machining. The mechanical design accommodates the differential expansion between the aluminium IFU and its titanium parent assembly across a 250K drop to operating temperature using an isostatic mounting system. This paper presents the development of the IFU from the design and diamond-machining techniques to the optical and cryogenic testing of the assembled flight model unit.
The NIRSpec imaging spectrometer, which forms part of the James Webb Space Telescope instrumentation, will include an integrated field unit (IFU). The IFU will be tasked specifically with efficient analysis of extended objects, including galaxies; it will accept a square image area at the spectrometer entrance field, dissect this area into 30 parallel sub-slits, and image the sub-slits end-to-end, forming a single virtual entrance slit. The IFU, uses all-mirror optics to operate over the spectral range 700nm to 5000nm. 95 mirrors and the main support structure are made in a common aluminium alloy, to achieve athermal performance down to an operating temperature of around 30K. Relatively complex mirror surface shapes are produced by diamond machining.The IFU has been designed and constructed by SSTL, with optics produced by CfAI; the unit is currently undergoing performance tests. This paper describes the IFU optical design and performance, and outlines the mirror manufacturing methods and alignment procedures.
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