Successful Demonstration of an Electrostatically Actuated Microshutter System for Space Telescope Flight Missions

Abstract

After developing a magnetically actuated microshutter array sub-system, which acts as a field object selector for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), our team at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) focused on the development of electrostatically actuated microshutter arrays – the Next Generation Microshutter Arrays (NGMSA). This letter describes the first NGMSA array that performed shutter operations for telescope imaging and spectroscopy in space. The carrier telescope, the Next-Generation Far-UV Off Rowland-circle Telescope for Imaging and Spectroscopy (NG-FORTIS) was produced by Prof. Stephan McCandliss and his team at Johns Hopkins University and launched into space successfully. [2020-0226]