AFTA-WFIRST Coronagraph Technology (ACT) Development

Closeout Summary: STMD/GCD investment over the past 4 years has brought coronagraph technology to TRL-5 with demonstrated system performance. The Coronagraph project has demonstrated a raw contrast ~10-8 which is 100x better than SOA (HST, JWST). Due to the successes of the Coronagraph technology development effort, the Science Mission Directorate has baselined the Coronagraph instrument on the WFIRST mission. It is expected that a coronagraph instrument will directly image many extrasolar planets to greatly improve our understanding of the universe. The Coronagraph Project developed key technologies needed for directly imaging planets around other stars. Coronagraph was base-lined as part of Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope. The Coronagraph technology investment advanced the sensors, optics, filtering, and algorithms to TRL 5 with a demonstrated system performance. A final integrated test pf the occulting mask with high contrast imaging filtering demonstrated an object contrast sensitivity of 1 part in 100 million with light filtering centered at 550 nm in a simulated dynamic environment which was a 100 times improvement in State of the Art capabilities for planetary science missions.