WFIRST

In the U.S., the Wide-Field InfraRed Space Telescope (WFIRST) was the top-ranked recommendation of the National Academy of Sciences 2010 "New Worlds, New Horizons" Decadal Survey for large space missions. It was based on a hardware design for a Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM), which was a mission concept focussed on dark energy. WFIRST is intended as a multi-purpose wide field infrared observatory with the prime objectives of characterizing the population of planets via microlensing events, and characterizing the nature of dark energy using weak gravitational lensing, baryon acoustic oscillations, and following Type 1a supernovae. The specific hardware design is similar to that of an earlier candidate for JDEM called the Advanced Dark Enerrgy Physics Telescope (ADEPT), led out of Johns Hopkins University. NASA supported our ADEPT mission concept study and NASA sponsors the WFIRST mission planning. I served as a Co-Chair of the JDEM Science Definition Team, the ADEPT principal investigator, a member of the JDEM Science Coordination Group, and on the 2011 WFIRST Science Definition Team.