James Webb Space Telescope, information, updates and discussion Options

[Redstone]

The manufacture of the JWST mirror blanks has now been completed.

Despite this milestone, the fate of JWST is still somewhat precarious, because although the scientific bang from the telescope is expected to be huge, the bucks required have increased to a staggering $4.5 billion. A Space.com article on the squeeze in NASA's space-based astronomy plans gives some background.

The JWST home page can be found here.

The Space Telescope Science Institute, which runs Hubble, also has a site here. As does ESA.

[ollopa]

Direct from its Washington premier just last month, the next really big thing in space exploration has arrived in Dublin this week to highlight the past, present and future of Ireland's contribution to space research. Construction crews at the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham spent three days assembling a full-scale model of the two-storey-high behemoth that will replace the legendary Hubble Space Telescope as humanity's sharpest eye on the cosmos.




The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, through it's School of Cosmic Physics, has been actively involved in space missions since the earliest days of space exploration, and this week it is hosting an international meeting of the scientists and engineers who are designing a revolutionary new observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Approximately 300 people will attend the meeting, which will be held in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham from Monday June 11th. to Thursday June 14th .




The JWST is named after the public servant who led America's project to land astronauts on the Moon, but it is a truly international enterprise. The Dublin Institute is providing optical filters for a key instrument aboard the telescope.




“We are immensely proud to be involved in this exciting new project,” said Professor Tom Ray, who works with a team of graduate students in the Institute's School of Cosmic Physics to understand how stars like our own Sun came to be in the first place. The new telescope will also study supermassive black holes and help in the search for planets that might harbour life.




The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies is involved in the telescope project through Ireland's membership of the European Space Agency, and special funding for this Irish contribution came from Enterprise Ireland. Barry Fennell of EI’s International Science & Technology Dept explained that while Ireland contributes to ESA, it also gets much in return: “In the last 7 years, over 50 Irish companies and 10 University research teams have secured contracts with a cumulative value of €35 million. In addition, commercial business being generated by Irish companies and academics directly from ESA-supported developments is estimated to be worth about €25 million a year”.




The large telescope model was brought to Ireland with the help of the Northrop Grumman corporation, prime contractors for the space telescope project. Additional sponsorship came from Omega Air, the Dublin-based aviation services company, and from FÁS, whose skilled apprentices found themselves working on something out of this world.




The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies plans to use the huge model of the space telescope as the centrepiece of a summer-long campaign to raise public awareness of Ireland's involvement in cutting-edge science. The Institute is probably best-known to Dubliners as the custodian of Dunsink Observatory, a much-loved Dublin landmark with a unique place in the history of astronomy.

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