Welcome to the sixth issue of the Webb Update, a newsletter to update
the community about the James Webb Space Telescope. Webb will be the
next flagship astrophysics mission for NASA and is planned for launch in
2013. A web version of this newsletter is available at
http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/newsletter6.html
In this issue:
(1) Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) Approved for Full Scale
Implementation
(2) Testing the Mid Infrared Instrument (MIRI) Verification Model
(3) JWST team member wins Scientist of the Year in Canada
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(1) Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) Approved for Full Scale
Implementation
-- Matt Greenhouse, ISIM Scientist
The Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) Critical Design Review
(CDR) was held during 9-12 March at Goddard Space Flight Center. This
review was the first of three element-level CDRs leading up to the JWST
Mission CDR. With the successful completion of this review, the ISIM
element is approved for full scale implementation.
The JWST flight segment consists of three elements: ISIM, Optical
Telescope, and Spacecraft, that together comprise the Observatory space
vehicle. The ISIM element contains four cryogenic science instrument
systems, a fine guidance sensor system, and a number of mission critical
supporting systems.
More than 1000 charts and a library of associated documents were
presented at the CDR covering all aspects of the ISIM hardware and
software, their expected performance to requirements, integrated
modeling, test & verification plans, as well as risk management, cost &
schedule management. The review board was chaired by the GSFC Mission
Assurance branch and included members of the JWST Standing Review Board
as well as ESA and CSA representatives. “The review team was very
impressed with the ISIM team’s significant progress, great technical
expertise, and candid discussion of issues” said review team chairman
Ted Hammer during the Board out brief.
With successful completion of this important review, the priority for
the ISIM team is to complete work toward the start of ISIM level
Integration and Test in the GSFC Space Environment Simulator. Science
instrument systems are on schedule for delivery to GSFC during 2010.
Upon delivery, the instruments will be integrated with their ISIM
supporting systems at GSFC. Over a period of approximately 14 months,
the ISIM element, in its entirety, will undergo thermal vacuum and other
flight qualification tests using a telescope simulator within the SES
chamber. The ISIM element will then be delivered to Northrop Grumman for
integration with the telescope. The observatory, as a whole, will
undergo cryo-vacuum testing at Johnson Space Center.
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(2) Testing the Mid Infrared Instrument (MIRI) Verification Model
-- Gillian Wright, George Rieke and the MIRI Team
The verification model (VM) of the JWST Mid Infrared Instrument (MIRI)
has had an extensive thermal-vacuum test over the past year at the
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, UK. The VM is a
flight-like version of the instrument, built for a variety of purposes
including measuring accurately the heat load for the MIRI Cooler and
developing methods for testing and calibrating the flight model (FM)
instrument. The VM has sufficient functionality to explore virtually all
features of the FM.
The data from testing are of sufficient quality for the MIRI science
team to begin defining calibration files and algorithms for pipeline
data reduction. The MIRI telescope simulator permitted point-source
illumination of the imager and spectrometer anywhere in their respective
fields of view, adjustment of the source temperature and flat-field
illumination.
We have successfully demonstrated the end-to-end functionality of the
data chain at cryogenic temperatures, exercised most of the detector
features and modes, and verified that the optical performance is as
expected from modelling. The MIRI VM test results build confidence in
the design both in terms of science and of operations. All indications
are that we have an instrument that will operate well and be capable of
great science. The MIRI team is now concentrating on assembly and test
of the FM instrument at subsystem level, with instrument integration
planned for later this year.
-----------------------
(3) JWST team member wins Scientist of the Year in Canada
-- Canadian Space Agency
Dr. Rene Doyon, principal investigator for JWST’s Canadian-built
Tuneable Filter Imager (TFI) and two of his former students, Christian
Marois and David Lafreniere, were awarded the prestigious prize of
Scientist of the Year by Radio-Canada (the country’s French-language
public television network) in January 2009.
A professor at the University of Montreal, Dr. Doyon was part of an
international team of astrophysicists who became the first to photograph
three exoplanets orbiting the same star. The discovery was made with the
Keck and Gemini North telescopes in Hawaii, using Angular Differential
Imaging (ADI), which reduces the brightness of a star in order to detect
faint objects around it.
The Tuneable Filter Imager on the James Webb Space Telescope will use a
similar technique, which should improve observations close to a hundred
fold. This will give the TFI unique capabilities for detecting the first
stars and searching for planets around stars outside our solar system.
“If a planet like Earth were to transit in front of a low-mass star,
this new technology would even be able to detect if the planet has water
- a condition essential for the existence of life,” says Dr. Doyon.
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Much more information is available on our website at
http://www.jwst.nasa.gov <http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/> including
presentations on JWST, cool animations, images of technology development
in progress, exposure time calculators and much more. STScI also
maintains an archive of the HST newsletters, which have regular
discussions of the JWST progress. These are available at
http://sco.stsci.edu/newsletter/
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