Crosschecking the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer performance budgets and science requirements compliance

Abstract

Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) is a massively multiplexed spectroscopic survey facility that will replace the Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope. This 11.25-m telescope, with its 1.5 square degrees field-of-view, will observe 4,332 astronomical targets in every pointing. Fibers at the prime focus will pick up the light and transmit it to banks of low/moderate (R=3,000/6,000) and high (R=40,000) resolution spectrographs. Actuators position individual fibers in the field of view to enable simultaneous full field coverage for both resolution modes. This instrument suite, dedicated to large scale surveys, will enable MSE to collect a massive amount of data: equivalent to a full SDSS Legacy Survey every 7 weeks. A conceptual design was developed in recent years and the project is preparing for the preliminary design phase. Now is the time to do a thorough cross check of the system level performance budgets against the predicted performance of the conceptualized systems and to check their compliance against the high level science requirements. This is particularly important in light of changes in scope due to scientific revisions and to technical challenges encountered during the conceptual design phase. Areas of non-compliance will require review as to how best to mitigate the non-compliance. The results of this analysis led to issues being identified with the telescope and spectrograph concepts. This paper will summarize progress on this analysis, redesign, and trade study.