NASAʼs Dark Matter & Dark Energy Programs

We present an overview of selected high value scientific results and prospects for future advances from NASAʼs “Dark” missions, i.e., those covering dark matter (DM) and dark energy (DE). This includes current missions HST, Chandra, Swift, GALEX, Suzaku, Fermi, and future missions JWST and WFIRST. These missions and earlier ones, such as WMAP, have brought about a revolution in our understanding of the fundamental properties of the universe – its age, rate of expansion, deceleration history, and composition (i.e., relative mix of luminous matter, dark matter, and dark energy). The next chapters in this story will be written by JWST and WFIRST. JWST was the highest priority of the 2000 Decadal Survey. It will observe in the near and medium infrared, and revolutionize our understanding of the high redshift universe. WFIRST is the highest ranked large space mission of the 2010 Decadal Survey. It is a NASA observatory designed to perform wide-field imaging and slitless spectroscopic surveys of the NIR sky (0.7 – 2.5μ). WFIRST will: (i) measure the expansion history of the universe, and thereby constrain dark energy, (ii) find Earth-like planets around other stars using microlensing, and (iii) perform surveys that are ∼100 times more sensitive than current NIR surveys.