Demonstration of high contrast with an obscured aperture with the WFIRST-AFTA shaped pupil coronagraph

The coronagraph instrument on the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope-Astrophysics-Focused Telescope Asset (WFIRST-AFTA) mission study has two coronagraphic architectures, shaped pupil and hybrid Lyot, which may be interchanged for use in different observing scenarios. Each architecture relies on newly developed mask components to function in the presence of the AFTA aperture, and so both must be matured to a high technology readiness level in advance of the mission. A series of milestones were set to track the development of the technologies required for the instrument; we report on completion of WFIRST-AFTA coronagraph milestone 2—a narrowband 10−8 contrast test with static aberrations for the shaped pupil—and the plans for the upcoming broadband coronagraph milestone 5.