31–39 of 39 posts
My group at Goddard has done work on the JWST detectors. JWST is a big deal here. It also scares the crap out of me, due to the gymnastics that are needed to get it unfolded properly, in a location where repair is impossible. A lot of people will be very, very happy when this thing is in orbit and working.
I have a question: is the big cost primarily due to the one-off nature of the components, figuring things out for the first time etc? I ask because there's some proposals (ExoEarth Mapper) for constructing a giant array of 20+ of JWST-like telescopes in order to get pictures of earth-like planets.
So if one JWST costs $8Billion, how much would 25 cost?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Until this post I didn't realize it wasn't going to orbit Earth in roughly the same spot as Hubble -- it's going to be roughly 4 times further away from Earth than the Moon is, orbiting L2! http://jwst.nasa.gov/orbit.html
I never understood how we can launch something into an L2 orbit. Does the rocket just fly out there and stop? Just it get caught at that location?
While Kerbal Space Program's physics simulation doesn't have Lagrange points, you can get a pretty good feel for how they work by performing any kind of in-orbit rendezvous.
My group at Goddard has done work on the JWST detectors. JWST is a big deal here. It also scares the crap out of me, due to the gymnastics that are needed to get it unfolded properly, in a location where repair is impossible. A lot of people will be very, very happy when this thing is in orbit and working.
What kind of detectors are you working with? Are they of a different kind or just more powerful than what's already up there?
Hey, my job's on HN! I work on JWST (simulation software, among other stuff) and I think it's pretty cool too :)
Remember who runs congress now, prepare for it be canceled (again).
I saw this in Wikipedia: "The JWST has a history of major cost overruns. In 2011, the United States House of Representatives voted to terminate funding, after about $3 billion had been spent and 75 percent of its hardware was in production. Funding was restored in compromise legislation with the US Senate, and spending on the program was capped at $8 billion. As of December 2014, the telescope remained on schedule an…
Hey, my job's on HN! I work on JWST (simulation software, among other stuff) and I think it's pretty cool too :)
Very cool. How much data is going to be arriving from JWST daily? Is it going to be readily open to the public?
The scientific data will be available to the public, sometimes after a "proprietary" period (typically in the range 6–18 months) where the data is only accessible to the team who successfully proposed to obtain that data.
Hey, my job's on HN! I work on JWST (simulation software, among other stuff) and I think it's pretty cool too :)
As an astronomer who works on infrared data every day, I am really grateful for everything you guys are doing. What kind of simulation software are you developing?
Hey, my job's on HN! I work on JWST (simulation software, among other stuff) and I think it's pretty cool too :)
Very cool. How much data is going to be arriving from JWST daily? Is it going to be readily open to the public?