Notes on JWST and UVIT

JWST continues to progress well towards its June 2013 launch date. All major technology developments are on track for a flight readiness review in January: this includes the sunshade, detectors, mirror segments, wavefront sensing, cryocooler, microshutter, asics, and cryogenic structures. The Canadian FGS narrow band imager has a prototyped etalon coating that works from 1.6 to near 5 microns. The telescope, optics, all instruments, and attitude control system are progressing through their design reviews, and quite a lot of hardware is already in hand, including all 18 beryllium primary mirror segments. The budget is stable and the schedule to launch looks achievable.

There will be a scientific meeting in Tucson in Sept 2007 which will focus on the science of JWST and other new facilities for the next decade. Canadian scientists are members of the NIRCAM and NIRSPEC instrument teams, as well as the team for the Canadian instrument. The January AAS meeting in Seattle will feature a special JWST reception, and the full-scale model from Northrop Grummann, with talks by several key persons, including the US project scientist, John Mather, who shares this year’s Nobel prize for his work on the cosmic background explorer satellite.

The ASTROSAT project is ramping up as the Sept 2008 launch approaches. Canada is providing the photon-counting detectors for the two UV telescopes (UVIT) on board this ISRO (Indian space agency) observatory. The other instruments are co-aligned X-ray telescopes of different kinds, and an all-sky X-ray monitor. The first joint ASTROSAT science teams meeting was held in Bangalore in September, attended by four of the Canadian UVIT science team. The details can be seen at http://www.iiap.res.in/uvit/uvitwork.html. Canada will have access to all instruments via UVIT team time and a guaranteed amount of competed time for the mission.

The UVIT flight detector components have been fabricated, tested, and selected, and the detector system design is essentially complete. Imaging performance is being tested using data from a laboratory detector system. The scientific calibrations will be done in the vacuum UV facility at the University of Calgary, during 2007, and the laboratory is being upgraded for the job.

John Hutchings