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J. Bechtold (U. Arizona), T. P. Greene (NASA Ames), J. H. Burge, M. J. Rieke, G. H. Rieke, H. W. Rix, K. Ennico, E. T. Young, M. P. Lesser, R. Sarlot, J. R. P. Angel, D. W. McCarthy, R. I. Thompson (U. Arizona), L. Lesyna, K. Triebes (Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space), J. E. Gunn (Princeton U.)
We report progress on our pre-Phase A design study of the integrated science instrument module (ISIM) for the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST). Our ISIM design provides imaging from 0.2 - 40 microns, including very wide field imaging in the spectral region from 0.2 - 5 microns, multi-object spectroscopy from 1-40 microns, long-slit cross-dispersed spectroscopy of single objects from 5-27 microns, and coronographic imaging in the optical and near-infrared. Each instrument is simpler than its yardstick counterpart and should be less expensive: all optics are reflective; the wide-field imagers need no reimaging optics; each module has fewer elements; and there is more commonality among the sub-modules. Our thermal design for the integrated package uses pulse tube coolers for the mid-IR BIB detectors. These devices operate at 1/3 of the power consumption of the yardstick Turbo-Brayton design and are significantly simpler. We base our near-IR instruments on HgCdTe arrays, because of their low dark current and read-noise, and large format. This enables a four-fold increase in detector pixels with the same array count as the NGST yardstick ISIM.
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