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The JHU and Ball Aerospace Advanced Camera for the HST will have a high throughput, wide field ($200'' \times 200''$), optical and I-band camera which is critically sampled at 1000 nm, a high resolution optical and near-UV camera critically sampled at 500 nm, and a high throughput, far-UV camera.
The AC's survey capability will be optimized for optical and NIR studies of the early Universe. The optimization is achieved by combining a novel, three-mirror optical design for the wide field camera with high reflectivity optical and NIR mirror and window coatings, a large format CCD optimized for the NIR, and a camera orientation chosen to minimize the time required to move to an adjacent field and begin a new exposure. The AC will increase HST's capability for surveys and discovery in the NIR by at least a factor of 10.
We will use $\sim$ 350 CVZ orbits to take contiguous deep V- and I-band WFC images of ~0.7 square degrees of sky to investigate the formation and evolution of galaxies and clusters of galaxies, and the nature and large scale distribution of dark matter. In the second survey, we will use Surface Brightness Fluctuations in deep WFC I-band images of early type galaxies to map large scale flow. We will use narrow band and polarimetric HRC and WFC images to address QSOs and AGNs, our second major science area.
The cornerstone of our approach to building the AC within the cost and schedule constraints set out in the NASA AO is reliance on STIS design and technology. The detectors and electronics for the far-UV and high resolution cameras are STIS design, and, in fact, may be STIS flight spares. Approximately 80\% of the AC electronics modules and mechanisms are ``build to print'' from STIS drawings.
