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M. Clampin (STscI), Advanced Camera Science Team
The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) will be installed in the Hubble Space Telescope during the third HST servicing mission. ACS has three imaging channels, the Wide Field Camera (WFC), the High Resolution Camera (HRC), and the Solar Blind Camera (SBC). WFC is a high throughput (45/ 700 nm, including the HST OTA), wide field (200"x204"), optical and I-band imager. The HRC is critically sampled (500 nm), with a 26"x29" field of view and 25/ at 600 nm. The HRC optical path will include a coronagraph which will improve the HST contrast near bright objects by a factor of ~10. The SBC is a far ultraviolet imager, with a throughput of 6/ of view. ACS will increase HST's capability for surveys and discovery by at least a factor of 10. The construction of ACS is complete and the instrument is currently undergoing optical testing prior to delivery to GSFC for the start of its ground calibration. In this paper we present an overview of the ACS instrument design, its science goals and discuss the projected performance of the WFC, HRC, and the SBC, based on initial laboratory measurements of the detectors and optics.