Want to see a talk by Nobel Laureate Dr. John Mather?

• By Maggie Masetti
• October 5, 2012
• Comments Off on Want to see a talk by Nobel Laureate Dr. John Mather?

Dr. John Mather is NASA’s resident Nobel Laureate and he’s currently a project scientist on the James Webb Space Telescope. If you’d like to learn more about JWST and why it is being engineered the way it is, then tune into his talk on Tuesday October 9th at 1pm EDT (in the Building 3 auditorium). If you’re not at NASA Goddard, you can still watch, as it will be broadcast on NASA TV’s public station.

After the talk, there will be a Q&A – and there is a chance for you to pose a question which might be answered on NASA TV! Simply ask your question on Twitter via the hashtag #AskJWST. There will only be time for a few Twitter questions, but yours could be one of them!

When: Tuesday, October 9th at 1 PM EDT. Building 3 Auditorium and on NASA TV.

What: Science Systems Engineering for JWST – Why are we building it like this?

Dr. John C. Mather will review the major scientific objectives for JWST, and how they drove the mission concept and detailed design trades. Key technical requirements include aperture, wavelength range, and sensitivity, which imply choices about orbit, cooling technology, deployment, and hardware technologies, with implications for possible servicing, launch vehicle, communications, orbit control, etc. Lessons learned from other missions, especially the Hubble Space Telescope, include the need and ability for on-orbit focusing and wavefront adjustment, and robust test programs to minimize risks when servicing is impossible. He will describe the scientific requirements, how they were chosen, and how they are still valid after 16 years of study, despite rapid scientific progress and especially the discovery of thousands exoplanets, and the cosmic dark energy. Dr. Mather will close with some speculation on possible discoveries that the JWST might enable.

Credit: NASA