5 ATLAST is a reference concept for LUVOIR and very similar in capability to the HDST. 4 To prepare for the survey, a UV/optical/infrared (UVOIR) surveyor is one of the four missions to be studied to produce a final report that details a compelling science case, a design reference mission with a straw-man payload, technology and cost assessments, and a high-level schedule for the major mission phases.īeginning in spring 2013, we assembled a team led by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and including NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Space Telescope Science Institute, to study the Advanced Technology Large Aperture Space Telescope (ATLAST). In 2016, the NASA Astrophysics Division announced the establishment of four “Large Mission Concept Studies” to prepare for the National Academies of Science (NAS) 2020 Decadal Survey. In 2015, the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) report “From Cosmic Birth to Living Earths” 3 provided a detailed science case and notional architecture for a 12-m segmented-aperture space telescope, dubbed the high-definition space telescope (HDST). The science objectives for LUVOIR include a broad array of general astrophysics priorities, including the origins of stars, planets, and galaxies, as well as the detection and characterization of habitable exoplanets. In 2013, the NASA Astrophysics 30-year roadmap, “Enduring Quests, Daring Visions,” 2 identified a large UV–optical–infrared surveyor (hereafter, referred to as LUVOIR) as a strategic mission in the “Formative Era” (roughly the 2020s through the 2030s). The Decadal Survey further recommended the definition of a future UV-optical space telescope as a small-scale activity for the 2010 to 2020 decade. The 2010 National Research Council (NRC) Decadal Survey, “New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics,” 1 recommended as its highest-priority medium-scale activity, a “New Worlds Technology Development Program” to “lay the technical and scientific foundations for a future space imaging and spectroscopy mission” (page 20). We also report on current, planned, or recommended efforts to develop each technology to TRL 5. For each technology area, we define best estimates of required capabilities, current state-of-the-art performance, and current technology readiness level (TRL), thus identifying the current technology gap. The key technology areas are internal coronagraphs, starshades (or external occulters), ultra-stable large-aperture telescope systems, detectors, and mirror coatings. The Advanced Technology Large Aperture Space Telescope (ATLAST) team identified five key technology areas to enable candidate architectures for a future large-aperture ultraviolet/optical/infrared (LUVOIR) space observatory envisioned by the NASA Astrophysics 30-year roadmap, “Enduring Quests, Daring Visions.” The science goals of ATLAST address a broad range of astrophysical questions from early galaxy and star formation to the processes that contributed to the formation of life on Earth, combining general astrophysics with direct-imaging and spectroscopy of habitable exoplanets.
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