Paper 14145-29
Paper 14145-29
Roman Space Telescope wide-field instrument opto-mechanical delivery summary
6 July 2026 • 14:20 - 14:40 CEST | Room B4-M3
Abstract
The Wide Field Instrument (WFI) on NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope was delivered to Goddard Space Flight Center in the summer of 2024 from its testing at BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems in Boulder, Colorado. This paper will describe the development and qualification process of the Cold Module, which consists of a hexapod adjustment mechanism for the focal plane, an optical element select mechanism, the optical metering support structure within WFI, and the two-stage cooling system. The co-development process with Goddard Space Flight Center will be reviewed. The phases of the development, from requirements, design, build, subsystem test, and final integrated instrument test will be discussed. Finally, a summary of challenges and solutions will be reviewed.
Presenter
Thomas Delker
BAE Systems, Inc. (United States)
Dr. Thomas Delker is the chief engineer at BAE Systems, Inc for the Roman Wide Field Instrument Opto-Mechanical Assembly. In this role he has guided the team through the architecture, development, test and delivery of the instrument’s opto-mechanical assembly. Prior to his role on Roman, Dr. Delker has held numerous optical engineering roles over his 24 years at the company. He was the lead optical engineer on TEMPO and GEMS, two earth-observing trace-gas instruments in geostationary orbit. He led numerous airborne instrument development demonstrations, including wind and flash LIDAR systems. Dr. Delker was also the optical lead for Wide Field Camera 3 and Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, the two instruments installed in the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009 during the final servicing mission. Dr. Delker earned his Ph. D. in gravitational physics from the University of Florida under Dr. Reitze where he demonstrated the future topology of Advanced LIGO and designed the LIGO beam expander.