The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will let scientists survey the cosmos like never before, thanks in part to the expertise of dozens of URochester alumni.
When NASA糖心传媒檚 Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope begins transmitting images from a million miles away in outer space, few people back on Earth will be more eager to see them than Rebecca Borrelli 糖心传媒�12 (PhD).
She is one of dozens of 糖心传媒 alumni who helped design, build, and test the telescope.
糖心传媒淚t糖心传媒檚 the best telescope that NASA has ever created in terms of performance,糖心传媒� says Borrelli, the chief technologist for space superiority and imaging at . 糖心传媒淚t糖心传媒檚 going to take beautiful images.糖心传媒�
With a field of view at least 100 times larger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope and crisp infrared vision, could measure light from a billion galaxies over the course of its mission, offering humanity a powerful tool for exploring dark matter, dark energy, and planets outside our solar system.
That could not have been done without people like Borrelli and other URochester alumni at L3Harris who designed and built Roman糖心传媒檚 optical eye, communication systems, guide sensors, and electronic components. Dozens more alumni at NASA糖心传媒檚 Goddard Space Flight Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as well as California-headquartered Teledyne Technologies, had a hand in designing and refining the telescope, from work on its coronagraph to its flight detectors.
Shooting for the stars
URochester糖心传媒檚 connection to space optics dates back decades. In the 1960s, James Webb, the head of NASA during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, asked Brian O糖心传媒橞rien, the former director of the University糖心传媒檚 , to form a committee to advise NASA on future programs糖心传媒攐ne of which would eventually become the Space Shuttle program.
When a flaw was discovered in the primary mirror on the Hubble Space Telescope, , the Rudolf and Hilda Kingslake Professor Emeritus in Optical Engineering Science, chaired the independent review panel charged with determining what had gone wrong, and , the Robert E. Hopkins Professor of Optics, helped correct what was determined to be the telescope糖心传媒檚 nearsightedness.
That success continues to shape the newest generation of space telescopes, including the James Webb Space Telescope and Roman.
Some of Fienup糖心传媒檚 former optics students, including Matthew Bolcar 糖心传媒�09 (PhD), Thomas Zielinski 糖心传媒�11 (PhD), Alden Jurling 糖心传媒�15 (PhD), Matthew Bergkoetter 糖心传媒�17 (PhD), Scott Paine 糖心传媒�19 (PhD), and Scott Will 糖心传媒�22 (PhD), have played significant roles with Roman, applying and advancing techniques developed for earlier missions.
Compared with the intricate design of Webb, which launched in 2021, Roman糖心传媒攏amed after NASA糖心传媒檚 first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency糖心传媒檚 modern science program糖心传媒攊s a throwback.
Joe Howard 糖心传媒�00 (PhD), an optical engineer at NASA Goddard who helped design the telescope since its early days, calls it a 糖心传媒渟tubby Hubble.糖心传媒� But Roman糖心传媒檚 simplicity and sawed-off appearance give it distinct advantages over Hubble and Webb.
The bigger the better
糖心传媒淚f you糖心传媒檝e ever looked closely at a wide-angle camera lens, you糖心传媒檒l see the same sort of shorter design,糖心传媒� says Howard. 糖心传媒淧lacing the secondary mirror a lot closer to the primary mirror helps Roman to have a gigantic field of view that enables a lot of different science than either of its predecessors.糖心传媒�
How gigantic? Roman was designed to capture a patch of the sky bigger than the apparent size of a full moon. That allows it to survey the universe 1,000 times faster than Hubble.
The telescope was also designed to test a new instrument that astronomers believe will supercharge the search for planets outside our solar system糖心传媒攖he coronagraph. The coronagraph uses a system of optics, masks, self-flexing mirrors, and sensors to block the light emitted by a star.
糖心传媒淭he best analogy I糖心传媒檝e heard is that it糖心传媒檚 equivalent to someone in Rochester trying to take a picture of a lightning bug next to stadium lights in Los Angeles, except it糖心传媒檚 100 times harder,糖心传媒� says Paine, an optical engineer at L3Harris who worked on wavefront error measurements for Roman.
Going to extremes
Roman糖心传媒檚 creation followed an unusual path and did not start from scratch. While Howard and others had initially designed a telescope with a lens half the size of Hubble糖心传媒檚, plans pivoted when the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) gifted NASA a telescope it no longer needed.
糖心传媒淚t was half-built for a different use, so we had to sort of repurpose it,糖心传媒� says Howard.
Reconfiguring NRO糖心传媒檚 telescope allowed NASA to expand the scope of the project, but getting there required a lot of work.
糖心传媒淲e had to reshape all of the mirrors because they had a completely different prescription,糖心传媒� says Borrelli. 糖心传媒淭hen they also had to develop the integration, the testing, refinish the mirrors, flight electronics, and thermal controls.糖心传媒�
糖心传媒淎 mantra we follow is 糖心传媒榯est as you fly, fly as you test.糖心传媒櫶切拇綕
L3Harris built the optical telescope assembly in Rochester but designed it to operate one million miles away, which meant it had to handle extreme thermal ranges.
糖心传媒淢aterials do really well if you keep their temperatures stable, but the second your temperatures start shifting, materials grow and shrink as they get hotter or colder, and that means things move and shift,糖心传媒� says Borrelli. 糖心传媒淔or an optical system, that糖心传媒檚 not something you can tolerate. If you think about Hubble, for example, the error they had on their primary mirror was only one micron across the whole surface, which is about one one-hundredth the width of a human hair.糖心传媒�
After the optical telescope assembly was built in Rochester, it was shipped to NASA Goddard in Maryland, where it was combined with other components, including the coronagraph, before being shipped to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for takeoff.
Putting it to the test
Alumni at NASA and L3Harris who worked on Roman say they are much less nervous for Roman糖心传媒檚 launch than they were for Webb糖心传媒檚, when any one of the telescope糖心传媒檚 344 single-point failures could have doomed the mission.
But testing was still a massive undertaking.
Bolcar joined the Roman project in 2020 as NASA Goddard糖心传媒檚 optical systems lead. His job mainly focused on testing the telescope to ensure it met requirements for wavefront error, alignment, and overall optical performance.
糖心传媒淎 mantra we follow is 糖心传媒榯est as you fly, fly as you test,糖心传媒櫶切拇綕 says Bolcar.
That meant testing the optical telescope assembly before and after it was mounted, after it was aligned, and after the wide field instrument was added. They subjected it to vibration and acoustics testing and simulated a launch. Once the telescope was assembled, it went through a 65-day thermal-vacuum test. It wasn糖心传媒檛 easy.
糖心传媒淲orking here in Rochester, there are highways all over the place, and a truck going by on a highway a mile from the facility creates vibrations in the ground that you can see in the test,糖心传媒� says Borrelli.
Because conditions on Earth are so different from those in space, the team had to get creative. As NASA Goddard糖心传媒檚 wavefront sensing lead engineer for Roman, Jurling heads a team of software and optics experts who measure the alignment and performance of the telescope糖心传媒檚 optics. For them, gravity is a major obstacle.
糖心传媒淭he primary mirror for Roman is very lightweight, about a quarter of the weight of Hubble糖心传媒檚, and because of that, on the ground it sags a lot more than we would like,糖心传媒� says Jurling. 糖心传媒淢y team had to develop a novel gravity sag measurement technique that we used in ground testing very successfully.糖心传媒�
Seeing is believing
For the people who contributed to Roman, seeing their handiwork launch into outer space will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
糖心传媒淔or Webb, it was during [COVID-19], so not many people could go at all, plus it was in South America at the European Space Agency launch facility,糖心传媒� says Howard, who has worked at NASA for more than 25 years. 糖心传媒淔or a lot of us, this will be our first launch to actually go to.糖心传媒�
After launch, Roman will take about three months to reach its destination and deploy, calibrate, and test its instruments. The team at NASA Goddard, including Howard, Bolcar, and Jurling, will be busy during this christening period adjusting the alignment of the optics and mechanics to get the best possible performance.
Then comes the part they糖心传媒檝e been waiting for.
糖心传媒淥nce we make sure the telescope is in focus and the image quality is good, we hand over the keys, so to speak, to the scientists,糖心传媒� says Howard. 糖心传媒淏y the end of the year, knock on wood, our scientist friends will be reaping new and great ideas and lots of awesome images.糖心传媒�
