James Webb Space Telescope optical stability lessons learned for future great observatories
Lee D. Feinberg,
Michael W. McElwain,
Charles W. Bowers
et al.
Abstract:The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched on December 25, 2021, and its optical performance in orbit has been even better than predicted pre-flight. The static wavefront error (WFE) is less than half the value specified for the requirement of having diffraction-limited image quality at 2 microns in the NIRCam shortwave channel, enabling the observatory to deliver both sharper images and higher sensitivity than anticipated. In addition to the excellent image quality, the optical stability has also exceeded… Show more
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