Overview of James Webb Space Telescope and NIRCam's Role

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the scientific successor to both the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope. It is envisioned as a facility-class mission. The instrument suite provides broad wavelength coverage and capabilities aimed at four key science themes: 1)The End of the Dark Ages: First Light and Reionization; 2) The Assembly of Galaxies; 3) The Birth of Stars and Protoplanetary Systems; and 4) Planetary Systems and the Origins of Life. NIRCam is the 0.6 to 5 micron imager for JWST, and it is also the facility wavefront sensor used to keep the primary mirror in alignment.

[1]  Alan Scott,et al.  Tunable etalons and other applications of multi-application low-voltage piezoelectric instrument control electronics (MALICE) , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[2]  Volker Bromm,et al.  The First Stars , 2004 .

[3]  F. Shi,et al.  Experimental verification of dispersed fringe sensing as a segment phasing technique using the Keck telescope. , 2004, Applied optics.

[4]  Marcia J. Rieke,et al.  NGST NIRCam Scientific Program and Design Concept , 2003, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[5]  Abraham Loeb,et al.  The Reionization of the Universe by the First Stars and Quasars , 2001 .

[6]  David A. Rapchun,et al.  Microshutter array development for the James Webb space telescope , 2005, SPIE Micro + Nano Materials, Devices, and Applications.

[7]  Paul D. Atcheson,et al.  Instrument-level phase retrieval wavefront sensing and correction for astronomical telescopes , 2003, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[8]  David E. Trilling,et al.  Decay of Planetary Debris Disks , 2005 .

[9]  Paul D. Atcheson,et al.  Segmented aperture system wavefront error sensing and correction experiments at BATC , 1999, Optics & Photonics.

[10]  T. Greif,et al.  The First Stars , 2003, astro-ph/0311019.

[11]  Adam Burrows,et al.  Beyond the T Dwarfs: Theoretical Spectra, Colors, and Detectability of the Coolest Brown Dwarfs , 2003, astro-ph/0304226.

[12]  Scott A. Basinger,et al.  Wavefront control for a segmented deployable space telescope , 2000, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.