Design News is part of the Informa Markets Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Awards Proliferate Around the James Webb Space Telescope

Article-Awards Proliferate Around the James Webb Space Telescope

Image courtesy of NASA feature.jpg
NASA honors Northrop Grumman employees as Aviation Week gives NASA and Northrop Grumman its Grand Laureate Award.

NASA’s James Webb Telescope team is giving and receiving awards for its extraordinary technology. On November 3, six Northrop Grumman Corporation employees received NASA’s highest honors for their contributions to designing and building the telescope. Scott Willoughby, Charlie Atkinson, Jim Flynn, Andy Cohen, Scott Texter, and Andy Tao were recognized with NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal, Exceptional Public Achievement Medal, and Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal. The medals are NASA’s highest level of recognition for non-government individuals.

Northrop Grumman’s CEO, Kathy Warden, was quick to acknowledge the contributions of its employees.“The dedication and commitment of these individuals represent the pioneering spirit of our entire team. From inventing technologies to creating zero gravity on earth for testing, our team built the world’s most complex and powerful space telescope for NASA, and we are all seeing the benefits of this incredible feat of engineering.”

>

The following day, NASA and Northrop Grumman received the Aviation Week Grand Laureate Award for the development of the telescope. The honor recognizes the team for building and delivering the world’s largest, most technologically advanced space telescope. Aviation Week announced the Grand Laureate winners at its 65th Annual Laureate Awards, highlighting major milestones in the aerospace field.

As the prime contractor in developing the James Webb Space Telescope, Northrop Grumman designed and built the deployable sunshield, provided the spacecraft, and integrated the total system. The observatory subsystems were developed by a Northrop Grumman-led team with experience in developing space-based observatories.

NASA noted that “after an early morning liftoff on Dec. 25, 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope team went on to complete the most challenging and complex on-orbit deployment sequence ever attempted.”

NASA explained that “the telescope’s 18 individual primary mirror segments were then brought into a precise alignment, forming the largest, most sensitive mirror system ever launched into space. Webb’s four powerful scientific instruments completed commissioning activities over six months and have begun delivering stunning insights and imagery of the outside universe, as well as planets within and beyond our solar system.”

Image courtesy of NASAPicture1.jpg

Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), the seemingly three-dimensional “Cosmic Cliffs” showcases Webb’s capabilities to peer through obscuring dust and shed new light on how stars form. Webb reveals emerging stellar nurseries and individual stars that are completely hidden in visible-light pictures. This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” is the edge of a nearby stellar nursery called NGC 3324 at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula. So-called mountains — some towering about seven light-years high — are speckled with glittering, young stars imaged in infrared light.

NASA’s Award to Northrop Grumman Employees

NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal recognizes personal contributions to NASA's mission success and advancement of the nation’s interests through extraordinary service and a profound level of excellence.

This year’s honorees include:

  • Scott Willoughby, vice president, and program manager, James Webb Space Telescope, Northrop Grumman. Willoughby led the Webb program from 2009 to the observatory’s arrival at Lagrange Point 2 in 2022 and oversaw all aspects of the program.
  • Charlie Atkinson, director, and chief engineer, James Webb Space Telescope, Northrop Grumman. Atkinson joined the program in 1998 and spent over two decades developing and testing the engineering marvel.

NASA’s Exceptional Public Achievement Medal recognizes an individual for significant specific achievement and improvement in operations, efficiency, and technology. This year’s honoree is:

  • Jim Flynn, director of vehicle engineering and sunshield manager, James Webb Space Telescope, Northrop Grumman. Flynn began working on Webb in 2004 and held multiple roles in the program, including managing Webb’s intricate and groundbreaking sunshield.

NASA’s Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal recognizes individuals for exceptional engineering contributions toward the achievement of the NASA mission who have significantly enhanced the aerospace field. Advancing the state of engineering practice, this year’s honorees include:

  • Andy Cohen, spacecraft bus director, James Webb Space Telescope, Northrop Grumman (retired)
  • Andy Tao, sunshield chief engineer, James Webb Space Telescope, Northrop Grumman (retired)
  • Scott Texter, optical telescope element manager, James Webb Space Telescope, Northrop Grumman (retired).
Hide comments
account-default-image

Comments

  • Allowed HTML tags: <em> <strong> <blockquote> <br> <p>

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Publish