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Stsci Newsletter: 2011 Volume 028 Issue 02

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Stsci Newsletter: 2011 Volume 028 Issue 02 National Aeronautics and Space Administration Interacting Galaxies UGC 1810 and UGC 1813 Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) 2011 VOL 28 ISSUE 02 NEWSLETTER Space Telescope Science Institute We received a total of 1,007 proposals, after accounting for duplications Hubble Cycle 19 and withdrawals. Review process Proposal Selection Members of the international astronomical community review Hubble propos- als. Grouped in panels organized by science category, each panel has one or more “mirror” panels to enable transfer of proposals in order to avoid conflicts. In Cycle 19, the panels were divided into the categories of Planets, Stars, Stellar Rachel Somerville, [email protected], Claus Leitherer, [email protected], & Brett Populations and Interstellar Medium (ISM), Galaxies, Active Galactic Nuclei and Blacker, [email protected] the Inter-Galactic Medium (AGN/IGM), and Cosmology, for a total of 14 panels. One of these panels reviewed Regular Guest Observer, Archival, Theory, and Chronology SNAP proposals. The panel chairs also serve as members of the Time Allocation Committee hen the Cycle 19 Call for Proposals was released in December 2010, (TAC), which reviews Large and Archival Legacy proposals. In addition, there Hubble had already seen a full cycle of operation with the newly are three at-large TAC members, whose broad expertise allows them to review installed and repaired instruments calibrated and characterized. W proposals as needed, and to advise panels if the panelists feel they do not have The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), the expertise to review a certain proposal. Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS), Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), and The process of selecting the panelists begins with the selection of the TAC Chair, Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) were all close to nominal operation and were avail- about six months prior to the proposal deadline. James Graham (UC Berkeley) able for Hubble observing proposals in Cycle 19. The Near Infrared Camera and served as Chair of the Cycle 19 TAC. Next, we select the chairs of the panels and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) was available for proposers as well. However, the at-large members. The recruitment of panel members is usually completed about when the Call for Proposals was issued, the decision on when the NICMOS cool- two months prior to the proposal deadline. The goal is to have a healthy mix of ing system would be restarted had not yet been made, and the instrument was experienced, senior panelists, as well as younger panel members at the postdoctoral inactive. Nevertheless, the proposers were advised to assume NICMOS would be level. Other important considerations are gender balance and representation of available during Cycle 19. members of the European Space Agency (ESA) and other countries. In Cycle 18, The Phase deadline for Cycle 19 was February 25, 2011. As usual, although I we saw unprecedented proposal pressure, and actually had to add an additional some proposals were submitted weeks before the deadline, the majority arrived on panel after the Phase deadline. We anticipated a similar level of interest this the last day, with a rapid rise in submission rate as the deadline, 8 p.m. Eastern I year, and so retained the additional panel. The final Cycle 19 assessment process time, approached. Due to power issues in Baltimore, Maryland, the deadline was involved 132 panelists and TAC members. extended incrementally: from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. on 2/25; then from 10 p.m. on In Cycle 19, we tried to make all panels close to the 2/25 to 3 p.m. on 2/26; and then from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday 2/26 (the Continued same size (about 9–10 members, including the chair), while final deadline). page 4 trying not to overload the panel members with too many The James Webb Space Telescope Lives in Interesting Times M. Mountain, [email protected] WST has featured prominently in the space science news, and in many cases made the news in the main media, over the past few months. I look at this in two ways. In the “glass is half J full” view, the scientific case for the telescope grows stronger as the technical progress of the mission reaches new heights and gets key milestones behind us. In early June, the Institute hosted the conference, “Frontier Science Opportunities with JWST.” The meeting attracted nearly 200 astronomers from across the world to share their ideas of the groundbreaking science JWST will do. This science is the cornerstone of the Astro2010 Decadal Survey, and cannot be achieved with current or other planned facilities (Figure 1). Wendy Freedman and Jason Kalirai describe the science highlights of the meeting in an accompanying article. The community’s scientific interest in JWST can be measured by their use of the newly released JWST exposure time calculator, which has seen nearly 5,000 calcula- tions since May 2011 (Figure 2). Seventy-five percent of JWST’s mass has been designed or is in construction, including the most challenging parts of the observatory: the 6.5-meter mirror array, the sunshield, and the instruments. All 18 primary mirror segments have completed final polishing and, after cryo testing 12 of the mirrors, show that the average surface aberrations across the entire 6.5m mirrors at 40 K will be less than 25 nm, delivering a wavefront with less than 50nm error. When combined with all the other errors in the JWST system, this will easily allow the telescope to reach diffraction-limited performance at 2 microns, and deliver superb images even at 1 micron, as the simulation in Figure 1 shows. All of the 18 segments have also completed gold coating. There has been significant progress on the science instruments as well, as discussed in the accompanying articles “JWST Flagship” by Jason Kalirai and “NIRCam Update” by Marcia Rieke and Massimo Robberto. NASA has also taken several steps to address the issues raised by the Independent Comprehensive Review Panel (ICRP) last fall. There is a new JWST Project Manager at Goddard Space Flight Center, William Ochs. Ochs and the Senior Project Scientist, John Mather, report directly to the Goddard Director, Robert Strain. The project has been placed in its own Program Office housed within the Science Mission Directorate at NASA HQ, with Richard Howard as the JWST Program Director reporting directly to the NASA Associate Administrator Christopher Scolese. The “glass is half empty” view of JWST has two parts. First is that its management and budget travails come at a difficult time for our community, and the short-term effects are painful. Independent of JWST ’s troubles, the country’s economic downturn is forcing the government to scale back its discretionary programs, including its investment in science at NASA, eating into our aspirations as articulated in our recent Decadal Survey. Finding additional funds within this environment requires recalibrating our hopes and our future, a process that will clearly engender frustration and disappointment. It is important we recognize that many in our community find little consolation in JWST ’s future robust science when their immediate needs are under direct threat today. 2 Figure 1: JWST will obtain spectacular images with unprecedented power for discovery. The left panels (white frames, prior page) show an image of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field in the near infrared, recently taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. This 0.7 × 1 arcmin image of the universe is the deepest ever obtained. The right panels (red frames, above) show a simulated image of the same region by NIRCam on JWST. JWST’s higher resolution improves the clarity of the image, and better reveals the morphology of sources. JWST’s exquisite sensitivity—much better than Hubble’s—brings out faint galaxies hidden in the noise of the Hubble image. Second, and not unrelated is the recent development in Congress, where the House of Representatives’ Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations subcommittee recommended zero funding for FY12, given the cost overruns. Under the House plan, the funds for JWST are removed from the NASA astrophysics and science budget and used for deficit reduction. The Senate appropriators have proposed reinstating JWST and supporting a 2018 launch. It was Senator Mikulski—chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science, and Related Agencies—who initiated last year’s ICRP. Over the next few weeks, the Senate and the House will discuss their proposals, and any differences in their respective proposals will have to be resolved in conference. NASA is in the process of redefining the JWST budget and schedule. The new launch date is 2018. The new budget will include, for the first time in the history of the project, adequate reserves and significant (and funded) schedule slack to deal with problems that may arise. The budget and schedule are consistent with an 80% confidence level, which is unprecedented and minimizes the chances of a future overrun. The recently reported $8.8B estimated cost for JWST represents the full, life-cycle cost of the mission. This includes the prior investment of $3.5B that has already developed ten new technologies to enable JWST, and brought approximately 75% of the observatory’s mass into or through fabrication. The remaining cost of $5.2B comprises three components: (1) current and future investments in other hardware, such as the sunshield, the spacecraft bus, and the very extensive integration and testing of the completed components; (2) contingency reserves set at an unprecedented level of approximately $1B commensurate with the recommendation of the ICRP Figure 2: The newly released JWST exposure time calculators provide an (80% confidence, 25% reserves required each year) to maintain schedule opportunity for the community to measure the efficiency of the observatory and to ensure JWST stays within budget, and (3) post-launch costs of in tackling tough questions that are at the forefront of astronomical JWST—flight operations, science operations, and research funding for research.
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