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James webb telescope location7/1/2023 ![]() There were also some technology maturity uncertainties. In 2000/1, the NGST project experienced a rescoping of the telescope size (from 8 m aperture to 6.5 m) to keep projected costs in bounds. The shear complexity of the project and the performance requirements demanded a technology development and validation strategy to address and demonstrate a critical path to a workable design of the mission. DRM was and is the primary tool against which any JWST architectures are being measured. In 1997, an ad hoc Science Working Group was formed which came up with thematic science goals and developed a so-called "Design Reference Mission" (DRM), representing a hypothetical suite of key science observing programs for NGST - which provided a yardstick for technology testing. In 1996, a committee report was written, based on these studies: "Next Generation Space Telescope, Visiting a Time When Galaxies Were Young." This report established also a roadmap to NGST activities, defining the new building blocks and to search for enabling technologies and concepts - in particular in the fields of large-aperture lightweight mirrors that are actively controlled, of advanced detector designs, of suitable cooling techniques for all critical components, and of precision metrology to achieve the goal of measuring ultra precise stellar positions.Ī broad range of talent on a national and international level and from many institutions, academia and industry was directly involved in the NGST detailed definition phase (Phase A) including simulations and feasibility studies. This involved conceptual studies by industry. The challenge was to come up with a lower cost for the large telescope than for previous much smaller space telescopes. In the mid-1990s, a telescope design with an 8 m aperture was considered. The goal was to have a successor mission for HST ready for launch well before 2010. Initial planning for the new mission started in 1989 (visions, conceptual studies). Historical background: Large next-generation projects with high-performance observation requirements take about two decades (and more) from first studies to launch. To accomplish the goals of the science themes, the main JWST design requirement calls for the detection of objects up to 400 times fainter than those observable by current ground-based or spaceborne observatories. Many of the early events happened when the Universe was between 1 million and 1 billion years old, a period that is not known to earthlings (the dark ages of the Universe). The radiation from the very distant objects to be observed is practically all in the infrared region. ![]()
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