The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. JWST will be an infrared-optimized telescope, with an approximately 6.5 m diameter primary mirror, that is located at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point. Three of JWST’s four science instruments use Teledyne HgCdTe HAWAII-2RG (H2RG) near infrared detector arrays. During 2010, the JWST Project noticed that a few of its 5 μm cutoff H2RG detectors were degrading during room temperature storage, and NASA chartered a “Detector Degradation Failure Review Board” (DD-FRB) to investigate. The DD-FRB determined that the root cause was a design flaw that allowed indium to interdiffuse with the gold contacts and migrate into the HgCdTe detector layer. Fortunately, Teledyne already had an improved design that eliminated this degradation mechanism. During early 2012, the improved H2RG design was qualified for flight and JWST began making additional H2RGs. In this article, we present the two public DD-FRB “Executive Summaries” that: (1) determined the root cause of the detector degradation and (2) defined tests to determine whether the existing detectors are qualified for flight. We supplement these with a brief introduction to H2RG detector arrays, some recent measurements showing that the performance of the improved design meets JWST requirements, and a discussion of how the JWST Project is using cryogenic storage to retard the degradation rate of the existing flight spare H2RGs.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a general astrophysics mission which consists of a 6.6m diameter, segmented, deployable telescope for cryogenic IR space astronomy (~35K). The JWST Observatory architecture includes the Optical Telescope Element and the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) element that contains four science instruments (SI) including a Guider.The alignment philosophy of ISIM is such that the cryogenic changes in the alignment of the SI interfaces are captured in the ISIM alignment error budget. The SIs are aligned to the structure's coordinate system under ambient, clean room conditions using laser tracker and theodolite metrology. The ISIM structure is thermally cycled and temperature-induced structural changes are concurrently measured with a photogrammetry metrology system to ensure they are within requirements.We compare the ISIM photogrammetry system performance to the ISIM metrology requirements and describe the cryogenic data acquired to verify photogrammetry system level requirements, including measurement uncertainty. The ISIM photogrammetry system is the baseline concept for future tests involving the Optical Telescope Element (OTE) and Observatory level testing at Johnson Space Flight Center.

The James Webb Space Telescope includes the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) element that contains four science instruments (SI) including a Guider. We performed extensive structural, thermal, and optical performance (STOP) modeling in support of all phases of ISIM development. In this paper, we focus on modeling and results associated with test and verification. ISIM's test program is bound by ground environments, mostly notably the 1g and test chamber thermal environments. This paper describes STOP modeling used to predict ISIM system performance in 0g and at various on-orbit temperature environments. The predictions are used to project results obtained during testing to on-orbit performance.

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