Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771
ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM
Schneebaum Award Ceremony
Monday, May 23, 2011 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium
John Mather
"Update on the James Webb Space Telescope"
ABSTRACT -- The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) project is delivering flight hardware, and some of it is already in the Building 29 clean room! I will show highlights of recent progress and discuss the technical challenges between now and launch. All four of the instrument test units have arrived at GSFC, and the thermal contraction and stability of the carbon fiber structure of the integrated science instrument module (ISIM) has already been measured in the SES chamber. Two of the four flight instruments are complete and under test in Europe, including the NIRSpec (Near Infrared Spectrometer), which contains detector modules and the Microshutter Arrays produced by Goddard. Already 9 of the 18 primary mirror segments have been polished, tested, and coated with gold, the best infrared reflector. Upcoming technical challenges include: integrating all the instruments and testing them with the optical simulator in the giant SES chamber in Building 7; completing the deployable sunshield; assembling the telescope in the Building 29 cleanroom; taking the telescope and instrument package to its cold optical and thermal test at the JSC Chamber A; and final preparations for launch. I will conclude with examples of the potential scientific discoveries to be made, and truly spectacular supercomputer simulations of the formation of stars and galaxies.
SPEAKER -- Dr. John C. Mather is the Senior Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope at Goddard Space Flight Center. His research centers on infrared astronomy and cosmology. As an NRC postdoctoral fellow at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (New York City), he led the proposal efforts for the Cosmic Background Explorer (74-76), and came to GSFC to be the Study Scientist (76-88), Project Scientist (88-98), and the Principal Investigator for the Far IR Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS) on COBE. He showed that the cosmic microwave background radiation has a blackbody spectrum within 50 parts per million, confirming the Big Bang theory to extraordinary accuracy. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Nobel Prize in Physics (2006) with George Smoot, for the COBE work, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal (2007). He is a member of many professional societies including the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Swarthmore College with highest honors in physics in 1968, and his PhD in physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1974. His doctoral advisor was Paul Richards, and his thesis on measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation led directly to the COBE satellite.