Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, December 12, 2005 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Neil Gehrels and Joe Dezio

"SWIFT"

ABSTRACT -- Swift is a Goddard-lead MIDEX mission launched in November 2004 to study gamma-ray bursts. Gamma-ray bursts are among the most fascinating occurrences in the cosmos. They happen about once per day, produced in huge explosions that are thought to be the signature of black hole birth. Swift was designed to observe bursts in a new way: it detects them with a large gamma-ray camera and then rapidly and autonomously slews to observe them with sensitive telescopes. The gamma-ray detector was developed at Goddard and is the largest and most sensitive such instrument ever flown. The talk will highlight the mind-boggling discoveries coming from Swift and discuss the engineering challenges and rewards involved in the development.

SPEAKERS --

Neil Gehrels is head of the Astroparticle Physics Laboratory at Goddard. He is Principal Investigator of NASA's Swift Observatory. His research involves building space flight instruments to observe astronomical objects. The emphasis of his research is on explosive events in the cosmos such as gamma-ray bursts and supernovae. He received his Ph.D. in physics at Caltech in 1981 and has been an astrophysicist at Goddard since that time. He was Project Scientist for the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory during its operations from 1991 to 2000.

Joe Dezio is the Deputy Program Manager for Explores at Goddard and was recently the Swift Project Manager. In his 35 years experience with NASA he has worked on IMP-I, Landsat-4, AEM/HCMM, ERBS, GOES recovery, GGS WIND missions and was project manager on Space Station Platforms, GGS Polar, and ICESat. Mr Dezio received his BS degree in engineering science from Oakland University, Rochester Michigan in 1967 and came to Goddard from the physics department of that institution in 1969. He received the NASA medal for exceptional service in 1997.