The astronomers have been licking their lips ever since it was revealed that a US spy agency would be bequeathing NASA with two telescopes as good as the Hubble space telescope. The mission “WFIRST” that would seek a better handle on dark energy which is speeding up the expansion of the Universe got a chance to resurrect. The 2.4 metre-wide telescopes have a field of view much wider than Hubble’s and would be better suited to the survey approach called for in WFIRST. “It is a tremendous opportunity”, says David Spergel an astronomer at Princeton University in New Jersey.
The telescopes each valued by NASA at around $250 million might actually make a WFIRST mission more expensive. As it stands right now, NASA would not be able to launch WFIRST until 2024. Moore the deputy director for astrophysics says that, with an infusion of money to re-purpose one of the spy telescopes, WFIRST launch could happen as early as 2020.
WFIRST was designed around 2.4 metre mirror and the mission can peer deeper into the Universe. It can survey the sky much more quickly. It can capture the attention of exoplanet hunters. Some are already calling for a star blocker to be added to the guts of the telescope so that the faint light of planets might be seen.
WFIRST was estimated to cost $1.6 billion. Reconfiguring the mission for a larger 2.4 metre telescope will come with added expenses. The spy telescope contains only the mirrors, optics and other structural supports. They lack solar panels, instruments and electronics. A heavier telescope would also require more expensive rocket to lift it into orbit. “I think we need a serious evaluation of the cost” says Spergel
Keywords – WFIRST, spy telescope, NASA, mission, expensive rocket.
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