- Hi, everyone. On behalf of the ExEP technology team. I'm very excited to share the latest news of our technology activities. So the program office is leading and supporting a wide variety of activities to develop technology for future exit plan at space missions. We maintain a list of technology gaps that must be closed to enable or enhance these missions. We facilitate strategic astrophysics technology grant awards that are aimed at developing technologies to close these gaps. We maintain space coronagraph testbeds facilities that can be used by SAT funded teams. And by slide projects. We're undertaking a survey of deformable mirror technologies. Which are at the heart of space coronagraphs. We're making efforts to advance the capability to measure Stellar RV to, better than 10 centimeters per second. So this includes technology work. And we're excited to see the EPRV report. And see what recommendations they have in the technology area. We manage an activity called S5. That is aimed at maturing starshade technology for future missions that NASA might choose to fly. Where we organizing a modeling study to address key questions about coronagraphs on segmented space telescopes. We support the coronagraph instrument on the Roman Space Telescope. By helping with their testbed facilities. And contributing masks as well. And the CGI is extremely important in taking an essential technology step towards feature space coronagraphs beyond the Roman Space Telescope. We have a small study underway looking at the status of technologies that might one day enable in knowing interferometry planet characterizing mission in the mid-infrared. And then, last thing that I wanted to just mention. That given the virtual work in school situation we've been in the last year and a half or so. Our team has challenged ourselves to kick it up a notch in spreading the excitement about the search for life in the universe. And the technology behind that search. So, actually just in this calendar year in 2021. We've already done seven virtual presentations to various groups. Mostly in Southern California area. But all virtually. Mostly to school aged children, science fairs, and so on. And, so that's been actually a great, we've taken a lot of inspiration from that. So, this is a lot. Today I'm gonna hit some of the highlights of these activities in the time I have. Focusing on updates since the last time we gathered six months ago. And then I'll end by discussing how in the technology team we plan to be responsive to the forthcoming Decadal Survey report. So, SAT is a computer grant program that funds technology development. And actually in all areas of astrophysics ExEP. Facilitates the awards and technology areas that are relevant to exoplanet science. We do that by helping PIs with technical reviews, schedule support. And, facilitating access to shared testbed facilities. So there's currently four technology areas in which there's active grants. Starshades are being handled elsewhere. And currently we have 10 active efforts around the country. So SAT awards have been one of the main drivers for maturing coronagraph technologies over the years. And, there's currently four awards looking at the architectures for coronagraphs. Three of which are scheduled actually this year, this calendar year. To carry out demonstrations in the vacuum testbed at JPL. Serabyn's vortex coronagraph is the next in the queue. I think it's actually pumping down right now. There's a lot of other great work going on in wavefront control techniques, detectors. And now in APRV. So, I'm gonna come back to SAT a bit near the end to talk about it. Because it fits in with how we're gonna be responding to the Decadal. And the other thing I wanted to mention. There's other SAT awards that are facilitated by the other semantic program offices within NASA astrophysics, PCOS/COR. And, there's some of those that we keep a very close eye on. Especially in the area of detectors. There's some cross-cutting nature to those technologies that are being developed. So you may have heard of this study we're facilitating called SCDA, segmented coronagraph design and analysis. Which brings together several groups of coronagraph designers around the country to look at ways that coronagraphs can play well with large segmented telescopes. So we started just by answering, by looking at the question. Is it even possible to have a coronagraph behind a segmented primary mirror? The very creative work done by all these different groups found several designs that actually work. And, now we're actually kind of challenging the designs further by looking at more realistic models of the telescopes. And considering the coronagraph and the telescope as a full system. And seeing how well that works. The coronagraph require too stringent and difficult to meet requirements on the telescope itself. So, this has led to the assembling of a preliminary end-to-end model. Starting with the physics of the telescope dynamics. The wavefront control, the chronograph itself. And going all the way to the science yield of a mission that would use that telescope coronagraph system. I think in the last six months that's really started to come together. Also we've done, we've been able to set up a very nice productive close collaboration with teams that Ball and Lockheed. Who were funded separately by a different NASA program to look at segmented space telescope modeling. And, so that's been extremely productive. The latest news is that we've, so anyway this is the kind of thing that we've been challenging the coronagraphs with. You can see, these are the segments of the telescope kind of moving around dynamically. So essentially we've reconfirmed the canonical 10 peak a meter wavefront air stability that was reported in the Luvoir report. And recently we found that there's a pretty sharp cliff somewhere in between 10 and 100 peak meters. Where it becomes very difficult to actually start detecting significant numbers of earth like exoplanets. So the next steps are then to see how much better we can do by including some additional wavefront control techniques. With natural and laser guide stars. Look at ways that the telescope modes that most impact the science yield can be addressed. And then just trying to increase the fidelity of this modeling as well. So this is very exciting. And we anticipate many extremely useful lessons for this effort going forward. So speaking of wavefront control. Deformable mirrors are such a key technology for space coronagraphs. That we wanted to make sure our program and the exoplanet technology community is actually aware of all the options that are out there. So Eduardo Bendek has done a fantastic job of leading a survey that evaluates the maturity performance and other risks of multiple candidates. The study just wrapped up, in last month. So Eduardo looked at 14 candidates around the world. Created a database of information on each of these possibilities. And a number of lessons emerged from this. So we've kind of identified some leading candidates. Ones that are kind of close backups that are worth taking a look at. And then also we've looked at some new promising technologies that aren't quite as mature yet. But definitely worth keeping an eye on. As they may catch up over the coming years. So Eduardo also came up with recommended next steps of where kind of the key challenges are gonna be. So these involve scaling up the actuator counts of the devices. We also always seem to run into issues with drive electronics and connectorization. There's a lot of wires that connect to these deformable mirrors. Coming up with a number of backup technologies is important. And then also we've taken it on ourselves to kind of keep up with how all of these different candidates are coming along over the years. And so we'll go back and check in on an annual basis. So, we're planning to schedule a ExEP technology colloquium to go over the results of this survey. So keep an eye out for that in the next coming months.

- [Woman] Brendan, about five minutes remaining.

- All right, thank you. So folks working on starshades have been very active. The S5 team has made a number of advances over the last six months. And I'm just gonna hit the highlights here. So data challenge has been kicked off. There's been additional work on optical modeling. Which is a key part of this activity. So, a number of variant subscale starshades have been built and tested at Princeton. So the results are being analyzed now. There's been some additional work on improved error budgeting, and revisiting some of the earlier results. Here's an example here of figuring out a better way to bond the optical edges. And then finally, Gary already mentioned this. But I really encourage you if you're interested in the gory details of the starshade, to check out all the articles in the special issue of "Jatis." It's really fantastic. I think the set of papers is gonna be incredible useful, resource for all of us in the field in the future. So, definitely check that out. Our colloquium series has also continued. We've continued to hold a colloquium every few months. In the last couple of months we had a talk by Gene Serabyn, on knowing interferometry. Which was effectively a status update for the nulling interferometry study that I mentioned earlier. So, if you're interested in finding out more about that study. I suggest you go to our website, and check out Gene's slides. Or watch the talk recording. And then just the last week we had a double header. At looking at what the space-based technology community can learn from recent innovations in ground-based instrumentation. In particular, the combination of high resolution spectroscopy and high contrast imaging. So that was really cool to see. So just to remind you again. We record all these talks. They're all available on our website. And you can find the slide decks as well. And please contact me if you'd like to be added to the email announcement list. I'm happy to add anyone who'd like to attend. Okay. So now just a few words about what's coming next. And how we're gonna respond to the forthcoming Decadal Survey. So, all these activities we're undertaking of course come from the recommendations in the previous Decadal Survey. And NASA's implementation plans based on that. And we're all of course waiting to hear what Astro2020 will recommend. So while we're confident that the work of the past decade plus an exoplanet direct imaging technology will put us in a good place. Whatever the Decadal might recommend. We're making preparations to be responsive. And we're working closely with our counterparts at the PCOS/COR program office. And with Mario Perez, the astrophysics division chief technologist. So, one thing that I'll get into more detail on my next slide. Which will be my second to last slide. Is, we'll be updating our astrophysics technology gap list to support the SAT 2021 call for proposals. And we'll make it responsive to the recommendations in Astro2020. And then kind of internally, we'll be carrying out some analysis of whatever the recommendations might be. So, compare what the recommendations are against what current technology investments we're already making. So that'll give us a sense of just how much we need to pivot. And headquarters of course, will also be asking, will be looking to us, the program office technologists. Both at ExEP and PCOS/COR. To provide input on what way would best work to make those investments either through computer programs like SAT or maybe just direct investment. So moving on to the technology gap list in my last minute or so. There's two ways we're planning to update the technology gap lists this year. In order to be responsive to the Decadal Survey. So, first of all. We're gonna update the way we prioritize. In order to reflect the mission priorities or technology development priorities laid out in the Decadal. Whatever they might be. I don't have time to get into the details of prioritization. But, I just wanted to make a side note. Because Michael brought this up earlier. To keep in mind that actually it's kind of standard procedure that technology gaps are prioritized higher. If they are cross cutting. That is they address science priorities of more than one of the three sematic programs within astrophysics. That's ExEP, PCOS and COR. So that's one way we kind of work with our program, with our counterparts in the other programs. So the second way that we're gonna be responsive to the Decadal and the gap list is to note that we may need to consider new technology gaps. Depending on the Decadal recommendations. There may be things we're not considering now. And so that's a way you guys can definitely help. Everyone in the community is welcomed to submit new technology gaps to be considered for prioritization. There's a form that looks like this. You can find on our website. We're open now. You can send them in now. But we've set the due date. So it'll be three weeks after the Decadal Survey report comes out. And I recommend that you actually wait until you see what the Decadal says before you submit. Because it's probably gonna make more sense to make it more relevant if you're able to write it in light of what the actual recommendations are of course.

- [Man] Brendan we're running into our break. And we're not gonna have time for any questions I'm afraid.

- No worries, I'm happy to take those on the chat. So the, I just wanted to mention in terms of the schedule of updating. It actually really depends on the plans for the SAT 2021 call. There's actually a call out now in ROSES for SAT 2021. All the due dates are TBD still. I think those will adjust depending on when the Decadal comes out. And how headquarters decides to use SAT in regards to the recommendations. But, so I think that nonetheless we're still open for a submission for the technology gaps. So just send those forms to me and my counterpart Ty Sam. And then, stay tuned for more information on how the SAT 2021 call looks going forward. So yeah, just to wrap up. I just wanted to briefly say how excited I am about the opportunities coming up. No matter what the Decadal says. We heard earlier from Hannah about the really exciting missions that are currently operating. And are in the queue with web launching soon and Roman coming, in the coming years as well. So we're very excited to work towards whatever we plan to do based on the Decadal recommendations. And I think we can all be confident that we'll see really exciting exoplanet science and new discoveries to come in the future. And we're excited to work on the technology side of that. Thanks very much. And, sorry for running over a little. Please send questions into the question tool if you have any.