WFC3 Calibration and Data Processing

Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), a panchromatic imager being developed for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), is now fully integrated and over the past year has completed first rounds of extensive ground testing at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in both ambient and thermal-vacuum test environments. This report summarizes the results of those tests and describes the pipeline processing methods that will be used to calibrate WFC3 data. WFC3 is designed to ensure that the superb imaging performance of HST is maintained through the end of the mission and takes advantage of recent developments in detector technology to provide new and unique capabilities for HST. WFC3 contains ultraviolet/visible (UVIS) and near-infrared (IR) imaging channels, offering high sensitivity and wide field of view over the broadest wavelength range of any HST instrument. It is slated to replace the current Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 during Servicing Mission 4. The WFC3 UVIS channel is based on elements from the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS)Wide Field Camera (WFC), with a 4096x4096 pixel Marconi CCD covering a 160x160 arcsecond field of view. The WFC3 UVIS channel is optimized for maximum sensitivity in the near-UV and contains a complement of 48 spectral filters and a grism. The WFC3 IR channel uses a 1024x1024 pixel HgCdTe Hawaii-1R detector array covering a 135x135 arcsecond field of view. The array sensitivity is optimized in the 0.8-1.7micron spectral range. The IR channel accomodates 15 filters and 2 grisms for slitless spectroscopy.