Integrated modeling for NASA's Roman Space Telescope: achieving unprecedented stability

Abstract

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Roman) is the highest-priority large space mission identified by the 2020 New Worlds, New Horizon Decadal Survey in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Its mission encompasses critical research in dark energy, dark matter, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics. Additionally, Roman features a technology demonstration coronagraph with active wavefront control for exoplanet imaging. Scheduled to launch no later than spring 2027, Roman will operate in a Sun-Earth L2 orbit with a primary mission duration of 5 years. To achieve its scientific objectives and technology demonstration goals, the Roman observatory must meet exceptional, unprecedented optical stability requirements. To this end, Roman built on the solid foundation established by the James Webb Space Telescope to successfully implement a system-level, cross-discipline analysis, or Integrated Modeling (IM), approach that marries system modeling and analysis with system engineering. Roman named IM a mission-enabling technology in recognition of its successful facilitation of error budget and requirement formulation, guidance for critical flight and test design decisions, and verification of key stability requirements through analysis—all accomplished while protecting project cost and schedule, vital given Roman’s status as a cost capped mission. Future IM teams will need to continue to evolve as missions become increasingly complex, both technologically and in the scope of partner collaborations.