JWST full scale model at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Institute (Image: NASA)
For 4 years, I’ve been a member of a team that will deliver part of the biggest ever astronomical space mission: the James Webb Space Telescope. In just a few weeks’ time, we’ll begin testing the flight hardware for MIRI, the telescope’s mid-infrared instrument, that will allow it to peer deeper into dense dusty and cold regions of our Galaxy and the Universe than its three fellow instruments. “Flight hardware” means that these are the actual bits and pieces that will be launched into space on board an Ariane rocket. Yes, that’s seriously cool.
My four years on the team makes MIRI my longest relationship in science yet. I’m rather fond of the little tyke. But four years is nothing in today’s era of mega-science. Literally hundreds of people have had a relationship with some part of the James Webb mission for well over a decade. Some may well be approaching their silver anniversary. Those of you with instrumentation experience know well what this means: meetings, documents, designs, documents, simulations, telecons, more meetings, reviews, procurement, manufacturing, testing, negotiations, documents, meetings. Endless, over and over.
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