NRC panel weighs in on space telescope

The National Research Council (NRC) has concluded that increasing the aperture and resolution on NASA’s planned Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST)—a space observatory to probe exoplanets and search for dark energy—would significantly expand its scientific capabilities, but it would likely cost considerably more than NASA’s original design.

In a report, released on 18 March, it was specifically noted that NASA initially considered a design of WFIRST with a 1.3-meter aperture, but in 2012 the National Reconnaissance Office gave the hardware for two 2.4m telescopes– the same size as the Hubble Space Telescope. After dubbing these instruments the Astrophysics Focused Telescope Assets (AFTA), NASA then began to study an alternative to the original telescope design. The agency also started to consider the addition of a coronagraph, an instrument that would advance goals in the study of exoplanets, the NRC explained.

But the NRC panel has recommended that funding needs to be augmented, in order for the addition of coronagraph on WFIRST to be sensible.