Most forecasts of the performance of CMB satellites on the measurement of cosmological parameters have included only the statistical errors on the CMB power spectra. Here we extend the modeling to include a treatment of galactic and extra-galactic foregrounds for both intensity and polarization measurements.
Cosmic signals differ from foregrounds in both frequency and spatial structure.
We find that MAP and Planck could in principle yield excellent separation of the cosmic and foreground signals, even when the nearly 500 parameters of the foreground model must be determined simultaneously with the cosmological parameters.