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Schedule including this lecture.
Goddard Space Flight Center Engineering Colloquium
Date: Monday, December 3, 2001
MAP launched on June 30, 2001. Its mission: to make a map of the cosmic background radiation with unprecedented precision and accuracy. The cosmic background radiation is the radiation left over from the Big Bang; it provides a view back to 300,000 years after the beginning of the universe. The subtle features in this background radiation will allow MAP to answer some of the most fundamental cosmological questions: Will the universe expand forever or will it collapse? What is the shape of the universe? How and when did the first galaxies form?
The satellite has reached orbit at the 2nd sun-earth Lagrange point, L2, and is performing extremely well. The first science data is to be released 18 months after launch. MAP was conceived in the "faster, better, cheaper" era, and was selected as one of the first Midex missions. This presentation will describe MAP's development approach, some of the challenges faced, and some of the lessons learned.
Ms. Citrin has been with MAP since its selection in 1996, first as systems lead then as Project Manager. Prior to that, Ms. Citrin worked on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Project, first as the Manager of the HST Data Archive and Development System (HST DADS), and later as the HST Flight Software Manager.
Colloquium Committee Sponsor: Dave Beyer
Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov