[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
SEARCHING FOR THE ORIGINS OF THE UNIVERSE:
AN UPDATE ON THE PROGRESS OF
THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 24, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-11
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
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Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR, ZOE LOFGREN, California
Wisconsin DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
DANA ROHRABACHER, California DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
BILL POSEY, Florida MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma DON S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
RANDY K. WEBER, Texas ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio PAUL TONKO, New York
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan MARK TAKANO, California
STEVE KNIGHT, California BILL FOSTER, Illinois
BRIAN BABIN, Texas
BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas
BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia
DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington
GARY PALMER, Alabama
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
------
Subcommittee on Space
HON. STEVEN PALAZZO, Mississippi, Chair
DANA ROHRABACHER, California DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland,
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma AMI BERA, California
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama, ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
BILL POSEY, Florida MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio DON S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
STEVE KNIGHT, California EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
BRIAN BABIN, Texas
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
C O N T E N T S
March 24, 2015
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Steven Palazzo, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Space, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 13
Written Statement............................................ 15
Statement by Representative Donna F. Edwards, Ranking Minority
Member, Subcommittee on Space, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 16
Written Statement............................................ 17
Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 18
Written Statement............................................ 19
Witnesses:
Dr. John Grunsfeld, Associate Administrator, Science Mission
Directorate, NASA
Oral Statement............................................... 20
Written Statement............................................ 23
Ms. Cristina Chaplain, Director of Acquisition and Sourcing
Management, U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)
Oral Statement............................................... 29
Written Statement............................................ 31
Mr. Jeffrey Grant, Vice-President & General Manager, Space
Systems, Northrop Grumman Corporation
Oral Statement............................................... 51
Written Statement............................................ 53
Dr. John Mather, Senior Project Scientist, James Webb Space
Telescope, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA
Oral Statement............................................... 61
Written Statement............................................ 63
Discussion....................................................... 71
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. John Grunsfeld, Associate Administrator, Science Mission
Directorate, NASA.............................................. 88
Ms. Cristina Chaplain, Director of Acquisition and Sourcing
Management, U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)........ 136
Mr. Jeffrey Grant, Vice-President & General Manager, Space
Systems, Northrop Grumman Corporation.......................... 146
Dr. John Mather, Senior Project Scientist, James Webb Space
Telescope, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA................... 154
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
Prepared statement submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice
Johnson, Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 162
SEARCHING FOR THE ORIGINS OF THE UNIVERSE:
AN UPDATE ON THE PROGRESS OF THE
JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE
----------
TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 2015
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Space
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Steven
Palazzo [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Palazzo. Before we get started this morning, I
would like to welcome a special group of students that we have
visiting us here today, Lake Burke High School in Virginia.
Welcome to the Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on
Space. Thank you all for being here. I woke a couple of them
up, I see. That is good. We haven't even got started yet.
The Subcommittee on Space will come to order. Without
objection, the chair is authorized to declare recesses of the
Committee at any time.
Welcome to today's hearing entitled ``Searching for the
Origins of the Universe: An Update on the Progress of the James
Webb Space Telescope.'' I recognize myself for five minutes for
an opening statement.
The James Webb Space Telescope represents a significant
investment by the U.S. taxpayer and holds the promise of
producing revolutionary science that one day may rewrite
textbooks. It could change the way we perceive our universe, as
well as our place in it. That is a lot to live up to.
JWST continues the heritage of space-based great
observatories. Leveraging the accomplishments of the Hubble
Space Telescope, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra
X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope, James Webb
will provide revolutionary astronomical measurements in the
long-wavelength visible and the mid-infrared range of spectrum.
This will allow scientists to see light from the first stars,
view the development of galaxies, and study the development of
planets. The infrared range that the telescope will operate in
allows the telescope to see through cosmic dust, view faint and
dim targets, and observe phenomena such as redshift from the
expanding universe. James Webb's unique vantage point from the
Sun-Earth L2 is also an ideal location that will enable the
observatory to make precise infrared measurements.
The scientific returns from these observations will be
compounded even more if James Webb remains on schedule and
overlaps with existing observatories that continue to return
significant science, or new assets such as the Stratospheric
Observatory For Infrared Astronomy and the Transiting Exoplanet
Survey Satellite that promise to complement James Webb's
capabilities.
This enormous potential is balanced by the sobering history
of James Webb's development. Initially planned to cost $1.6
billion and launch in 2011, the program ballooned to a
lifecycle cost estimate of nearly $9 billion and slipped seven
years to a 2018 launch date. James Webb's history is well
known, and I do not wish to open old wounds, but Congress would
be complicit in any future delays or overruns if it failed to
maintain proper oversight of this program.
Despite the significant progress made by NASA and the
contractors, the program is not out of the woods yet. It is now
entering the critical integration and testing phase where
unforeseen problems typically arise. These unplanned technical
challenges could threaten the cost and schedule reserves during
this critical period. Recent issues with the cryocooler, a
critical component that is necessary for proper measurements,
reinforce the need for persistent monitoring and oversight. The
sheer technical complexity of this program demands it.
Even after the telescope is fully assembled, shipped to
Kourou, and launched into space, all of us will still be
crossing our fingers that this massive spacecraft will arrive
at its intended destination and execute its intricately
choreographed origami-like deployment. Everyone involved in
this project is working to make it a success: the engineers and
technicians, the contractors, the managers and scientists at
NASA, and even the Members and Senators here on the Capitol
Hill.
In 2011, the House of Representatives voted to cancel the
program after its cost estimates skyrocketed and threatened not
only other astrophysics missions, but also Science Mission
Directorate activities. The contagion of escalating costs even
threatened other national priorities at NASA. Planetary science
and even exploration programs have sacrificed funding to
buttress James Webb and keep the program on track. With a
statutory cost cap of $8 billion for development, Congress
expressed both an endorsement and a limitation. For the sake of
all of NASA's programs, I hope that James Webb will launch in
line with its updated schedule and current cost projections.
Even after launch, issues related to James Webb will
remain. For instance, what will happen to the additional
funding poured into the Science Mission Directorate to cover
James Webb's overruns? Will the Astrophysics account maintain
funding profiles consistent with these augmentations? Will the
other programs and projects within the Science Mission
Directorate return to their historical proportions after James
Webb is launched? Will Exploration programs recoup the funding
transferred to the James Webb program, or will these
proportions represent the new norm?
With overall budgets remaining flat or only increasing
marginally, how the other $600 million a year devoted to James
Webb will be reallocated after launch is one of the most
important decisions facing NASA and Congress. In light of
decreasing budget requests from the Administration for
Exploration, it may be appropriate to reconstitute the programs
that sacrificed funding to cover James Webb's cost growth.
Before I conclude, I would like to take the opportunity to
thank GAO for their diligent work on the James Webb program. As
the program matures, questions are shifting from whether or not
the cost, schedule, and technical plans are adequate to whether
NASA and the contractors are executing to those plans. I hope
GAO will continue to provide this Committee with insight into
this complex program so that we can all ensure its ultimate
success. I also hope that NASA and the contractors heed the
GAO's advice and recommendations. More specifically, I hope
that in the future, NASA and the contractors will allow the GAO
access to information and personnel so that they can fulfill
their statutorily required task to monitor this program on
behalf of Congress. GAO's recent report highlighted instances
where their access was limited. Transparency and accountability
are tenets of sound program management and oversight. I trust
that won't be a precedent for future engagements.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Palazzo follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Space
Chairman Steven Palazzo
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) represents a significant
investment by the U.S. taxpayer and holds the promise of producing
revolutionary science that one day may rewrite textbooks. It could
change the way we perceive our universe, as well as our place in it.
That is a lot to live up to.
JWST continues the heritage of space-based ``Great Observatories.''
Leveraging the accomplishments of the Hubble Space Telescope, the
Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the
Spitzer Space Telescope, JWST will provide revolutionary astronomical
measurements in the long-wavelength visible and the mid-infrared range
of spectrum. This will allow scientists to see light from the first
stars, view the development of galaxies, and study the development of
planets.
The infrared range that the telescope will operate in allows the
telescope to see through cosmic dust, view faint and dim targets, and
observe phenomena such as redshift from the expanding universe. JWST's
unique vantage point from the Sun-Earth L2 is also an ideal location
that will enable the observatory to make precise infrared measurements.
The scientific returns from these observations will be compounded even
more if JWST remains on schedule and overlaps with existing
observatories that continue to return significant science, or new
assets such as the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy
(SOFIA) and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) that
promise to complement JWST's capabilities.
This enormous potential is balanced by the sobering history of
JWST's development. Initially planned to cost $1.6 billion and launch
in 2011, the program ballooned to a life-cycle cost estimate of nearly
$9 billion and slipped 7 years to a 2018 launch date.
JWST's history is well known, and I do not wish to open old wounds,
but Congress would be complicit in any future delays or over-runs if it
failed to maintain proper oversight of this program. Despite the
significant progress made by NASA and the contractors, the program is
not out of the woods yet. It is now entering the critical integration
and testing phase where unforeseen problems typically arise. These
unplanned technical challenges could threaten the cost and schedule
reserves during this critical period. Recent issues with the
cryocooler, a critical component that is necessary for proper
measurements, reinforce the need for persistent monitoring and
oversight. The sheer technical complexity of this program demands it.
Even after the telescope is fully assembled, shipped to Kourou, and
launched into space, all of us will still be crossing our fingers that
this massive spacecraft will arrive at its intended destination and
execute its intricately choreographed origami-like deployment.
Everyone involved in this project is working to make it a success.
The engineers and technicians at the contractors, the managers and
scientists at NASA, and even the Members and Senators here on the
Capitol Hill. In 2011, the House of Representatives voted to cancel the
program after its cost estimates skyrocketed and threatened not only
other astrophysics missions, but also other Science Mission Directorate
activities. The contagion of escalating costs even threatened other
national priorities at NASA. Planetary science and even exploration
programs have sacrificed funding to buttress JWST and keep the program
on track. With a statutory cost cap of $8 billion for development,
Congress expressed both an endorsement and a limitation. For the sake
of all of NASA's programs, I hope that JWST will launch in line with
its updated schedule and current cost projections.
Even after launch, issues related to JWST will remain. For
instance, what will happen to the additional funding poured into the
Science Mission Directorate to cover JWST over-runs? Will the
Astrophysics account maintain funding profiles consistent with these
augmentations? Will the other programs and projects within the Science
Mission Directorate return to their historical proportions after JWST
is launched? Will Exploration programs recoup the funding transferred
to the JWST program, or will these proportions represent the new norm?
With overall budgets remaining flat or only increasing marginally, how
the over $600 million a year devoted to JWST will be reallocated after
launch is one of the most important decisions facing NASA and Congress.
In light of decreasing budget requests from the Administration for
Exploration, it may be appropriate to reconstitute the programs that
sacrificed funding to cover JWST cost growth.
Before I conclude, I would like to take the opportunity to thank
GAO for their diligent work on the JWST program. As the program
matures, questions are shifting from whether or not the cost, schedule,
and technical plans are adequate to whether NASA and the contractors
are executing to those plans. I hope GAO will continue to provide this
Committee with insight into this complex program so that we can all
ensure its ultimate success. I also hope that NASA and the contractors
heed the GAO's advice and recommendations.
More specifically, I hope that in the future NASA and the
contractors will allow the GAO access to information and personnel so
that they can fulfill their statutorily required task to monitor this
program on behalf of Congress. GAO's recent report highlighted
instances where their access was limited. Transparency and
accountability are tenets of sound program management and oversight. I
trust that won't be a precedent for future engagements.
Chairman Palazzo. At this time I now recognize the Ranking
Member, the gentlelady from Maryland, for an opening statement.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good
morning and welcome to our distinguished panel of witnesses.
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for calling this hearing
to evaluate the development of the James Webb Space Telescope--
known as JWST--and discuss the science that the observatory
will enable. This hearing also comes at a fortuitous time, on
the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope,
and as an aside, I can remember when this exact same
discussion, perhaps about the cancellation of Hubble, was part
of the conversation in Congress, and thank goodness 25 years
later, looking back on that, that we didn't do that because of
the amazing, amazing work that has been done and the learning
that has taken place over the course of those years, but that
was the conversation more than 25 years ago, and a good thing
that Congress didn't take those actions.
Launched in April 1990, Hubble was the first major optical
space-based observatory orbiting above the distortion of the
atmosphere, and above rain, clouds, and light pollution. Many
of today's younger generation have grown up with Hubble, and I
dare say that most Americans have seen the awe-inspiring image
taken by Hubble of the iconic Eagle Nebula capturing the famous
``Pillars of Creation.''
JWST is the next generation astrophysics observatory
following Hubble. More capable and sensitive than Hubble, JWST
is optimized to study infrared light from the universe, which
will allow JWST to observe the first galaxies formed in the
Universe. In addition, JWST will see solar systems forming in
our galaxy and possibly detect the presence of liquid water on
planets around other stars--an indicator that such a planet may
indeed harbor life.
Mr. Chairman, that is exciting and that is why I just can't
wait for JWST to be launched and working. But I also recognize,
as the Chairman has indicated, that the road to building JWST
has not been an easy one. The observatory's history of cost
growth and schedule delays has not gone unnoticed by the
Congress. An independent review panel found in October 2010
that a substantial funding increase would be needed to complete
the observatory. As a consequence, NASA re-baselined the
project in 2011 with a lifecycle cost estimate of $8.8 billion
and a launch readiness date of October 2018. Congress indeed
has done its share and funded JWST annually consistent with
that re-baseline. We need to continue to do so.
The Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act
of 2012 directed the Government Accountability Office to report
on the project on an annual basis. I appreciate GAO keeping
Congress informed of that. With a launch now a little more than
three years away and major integration tests looming ahead,
NASA will be under pressure to demonstrate that it can meet the
launch date within the cost estimate, and although the latest
GAO report concludes that JWST remains on schedule and on
budget, GAO also reported that ``technical challenges with JWST
elements and major subsystems, however, have diminished the
project's overall schedule reserve and increased risk.''
At today's hearing, I hope to get answers on the following
questions: What progress is being made in preparing scientific
investigations and scientists who will capitalize on JWST's
unique capabilities? And with three years until launch, what
technical challenges and associated risks still remain? What
steps are being taken by NASA and its contractors to ensure
that cost and schedule commitments are met? And finally, what
is the level of confidence that NASA will be able to meet the
October 2018 launch date?
Again, I want to thank our witnesses for appearing before
our Subcommittee, and I do look forward to your testimony, and
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Edwards follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Space
Ranking Member Donna F. Edwards
Good Morning, and welcome to our distinguished panel of witnesses.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this hearing to evaluate the
development of the James Webb Space Telescope--known as JWS--and
discuss the science that the observatory will enable. This hearing
comes at a fortuitous time, on the eve of the 25th Anniversary of the
Hubble Space Telescope. Launched in April 1990, Hubble was the first
major optical space-based observatory orbiting above the distortion of
the atmosphere, and above rain, clouds, and light pollution. Many of
today's younger generation have grown up with Hubble, and I dare say
that most Americans have seen the awe-inspiring image taken by Hubble
of the iconic Eagle Nebula capturing the famous ``Pillars of
Creation.''
JWST is the next generation astrophysics observatory following
Hubble. More capable and sensitive than Hubble, JWST is optimized to
study infrared light from the Universe, which will allow JWST to
observe the first galaxies formed in the Universe. In addition, JWST
will see solar systems forming in in our galaxy and possibly detect the
presence of liquid water on planets around other stars--an indicator
that such a planet may harbor life. Mr. Chairman, that is exciting and
why I just can't wait for JWST to be launched and working.
But I also recognize that the road to building JWST has not been an
easy one. The observatory's history of cost growth and schedule delays
has not gone unnoticed by the Congress. An independent review panel
found in October 2010 that a substantial funding increase would be
needed to complete the observatory. As a consequence, NASA rebaselined
the project in 2011 with a life cycle cost estimate of $8.8 billion and
a launch readiness date of October 2018. Congress has done its share
and funded JWST annually consistent with that rebaseline. We need to
continue doing so.
The Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2012
directed the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to report on the
project on an annual basis. I appreciate GAO keeping Congress informed.
With launch now a little more than three years away and major
integration tests looming ahead, NASA will be under pressure to
demonstrate that it can meet the launch date within the cost estimate.
And although the latest GAO report concludes that JWST remains on
schedule and on budget, GAO also reported that ``[T]echnical challenges
with JWST elements and major subsystems, however, have diminished the
project's overall schedule reserve and increased risk.''
At today's hearing, I hope to get answers on the following
questions:
What progress is being made in preparing scientific
investigations and scientists who will capitalize on JWST's unique
capabilities?
With three years until launch, what technical challenges
and associated risks still remain?
What steps are being taken by NASA and its contractors to
ensure that cost and schedule commitments are met? And
What is the level of confidence that NASA will be able to
meet the October 2018 launch date?
Again, I want to thank our witnesses for appearing before
our Subcommittee, and I look forward to your testimony.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Palazzo. Thank you, Ms. Edwards.
I now recognize the Chairman of the full Committee, Mr.
Smith.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Space exploration is an investment in our future--often the
distant future. It encourages innovation and improves
Americans' quality of life. It inspires the next generation to
pursue careers in math, engineering, science, and technology.
The James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, is an example of such
an investment. The astrophysics community identified the
program as the top priority in 2001. The telescope will far
surpass in size, power, and capability any previous space-based
observatory launched by NASA. JWST is set to orbit nearly one
million miles from Earth in the Earth-Sun Lagrange point. It is
expected to observe the origin of the galaxies, provide
insights into the early formation of stars and planets, and
characterize exoplanets.
The search for exoplanets and Earth-like planets is a
relatively new but inspiring area of space exploration.
Scientists have discovered hundreds of planets and solar
systems in our own galaxy that we never knew existed. By
developing and using new telescopes in conjunction with JWST,
we may find biosignatures of life on other planets. For
example, when examined from a distance, Earth's atmosphere
contains large amounts of oxygen. When looked at through a
large infrared telescope, like JWST, this biosignature would be
detectable.
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, is
currently on track to launch in 2017. This telescope will
survey the brightest stars close to Earth to find exoplanets.
The survey will provide prime targets for JWST and future
ground-based and space-based telescopes. TESS has a two-year
planned mission life. It is critical to launch JWST in 2018, so
enough overlap exists with the telescopes to maximize the
scientific return.
As the top priority mission in the 2010 astrophysics
survey, the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope, or WFIRST,
will also contribute to the characterization of exoplanets. If
funded properly, it could launch in time to significantly
overlap with JWST. This would maximize the scientific return of
both telescopes. Each is designed to view different but
complimentary parts of the infrared spectrum needed to
determine the composition of the atmosphere of exoplanets.
WFIRST could also have a coronagraph for detecting imaging
capabilities. This means the telescope will be able to help
determine the chemical composition of a planet. The potential
science to be gained from the combined use of these telescopes
illustrates why it is important JWST be completed and launched
in 2018. However, just as important to being launched on time,
JWST must be completed within the congressionally mandated
spending caps for the program. If JWST is unable to do this, it
affects the ability to build future telescopes, like WFIRST.
I look forward to hearing how development of the James Webb
Space Telescope is progressing.
And Mr. Chairman, before I yield back, let me apologize to
Members and our witnesses today that I have another Committee
that is in the process of marking up a bill that I need to go
to and will be back I hope sometime soon. So while this is the
most important hearing in D.C. today, I will just have to
absent myself for a few minutes, so thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]
Prepared Statement of Full Committee
Chairman Lamar S. Smith
Space exploration is an investment in our future--often the distant
future. It encourages innovation and improves Americans' quality of
life. It inspires the next generation to pursue careers in math,
engineering, science, and technology.
The James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, is an example of such an
investment.
The astrophysics community identified the program as the top
priority in 2001. The telescope will far surpass in size, power, and
capability any previous space-based observatory launched by NASA.
JWST is set to orbit nearly one million miles from Earth in the
Earth-Sun Lagrange point. It is expected to observe the origin of the
galaxies, provide insights into the early formation of stars and
planets, and characterize exoplanets.
The search for exoplanets and Earth-like planets is a relatively
new but inspiring area of space exploration. Scientists have discovered
hundreds of planets and solar systems in our own galaxy that we never
knew existed.
By developing and using new telescopes in conjunction with JWST, we
may find biosignatures of life on other planets.
For example, when examined from a distance, Earth's atmosphere
contains large amounts of oxygen. When looked at through a large
infrared telescope, like JWST, this biosignature would be detectable.
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, is currently on
track to launch in 2017. This telescope will survey the brightest stars
close to Earth to find exoplanets. The survey will provide prime
targets for JWST and future ground-based and space-based telescopes.
TESS has a two year planned mission life. It is critical to launch
JWST in 2018, so enough overlap exists with the telescopes to maximize
the scientific return.
As the top priority mission in the 2010 astrophysics survey, the
Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope, or WFIRST, will also contribute
to the characterization of exoplanets.
If funded properly, it could launch in time to significantly
overlap with JWST. This would maximize the scientific return of both
telescopes. Each is designed to view different but complimentary parts
of the infrared spectrum needed to determine the composition of the
atmosphere of exoplanets.
WFIRST could also have a coronagraph for direct imaging
capabilities. This means the telescope will be able to help determine
the chemical composition of a planet.
The potential science to be gained from the combined use of these
telescopes illustrates why it is important JWST be completed and
launched in 2018.
However, just as important to being launched on time, JWST must be
completed within the congressionally mandated spending caps for the
program. If JWST is unable to do this, it affects the ability to build
future telescopes, like WFIRST.
I look forward to hearing how development of the James Webb Space
Telescope is progressing.
Chairman Palazzo. Thank you, Mr. Smith.
At this time I would like to introduce our witnesses. Our
first witness today is Dr. John Grunsfeld, Associate
Administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. He
previously served as Deputy Director of the Space Telescope
Science Institute managing the Science Program for both Hubble
and the James Webb Space Telescope. Dr. Grunsfeld has worked
for NASA since 1992 and is a veteran of five space shuttle
flights. Dr. Grunsfeld received a bachelor's degree in physics
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and both a
master's degree and doctorate in physics from the University of
Chicago.
Our second witness, Ms. Cristina Chaplain, has been a U.S.
Government Accountability Office employee for 23 years and
currently serves as the Director of Acquisition and Sourcing
Management. In this capacity, she is responsible for GAO
assessments of military space acquisitions and NASA. She has
led reviews of the Space Launch System, the International Space
Station, and the James Webb Space Telescope, among others.
Prior to her current position, Ms. Chaplain worked with GAO's
Financial Management and Information Technology Teams. She
received her bachelor's in international relations from Boston
University and a master's degree in journalism from Columbia
University.
Our third witness is Mr. Jeffrey Grant. Mr. Grant has
served in numerous positions within Northrop Grumman and is
currently Sector Vice President and General Manager of Space
Systems at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. Prior to joining
Northrop Grumman, Mr. Grant was Vice President and Chief
Technical Officer for Astrolink International LLC. Before
joining the private sector, Mr. Grant served for 21 years in
the CIA in the National Reconnaissance Office. Mr. Grant
received a bachelor's of science in ocean engineering from the
Florida Institute of Technology.
I now recognize our Ranking Member, Ms. Edwards, to
introduce our final witness.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am honored today to introduce Dr. John Mather, who is the
Senior Project Scientist on the James Webb Space Telescope and
a Senior Astrophysicist in the Observational Cosmology
Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. I am also
proud to say that Dr. Mather is a resident of the 4th
Congressional District of Maryland. Seldom does this
Committee--Subcommittee--have the privilege of welcoming as a
witness a dedicated federal civil servant who is also a Nobel
Prize laureate, but today we do.
Among his many awards and accomplishments, Dr. Mather,
along with George Smoot, received the 2006 Nobel Prize in
Physics for work in cementing the Big Bang theory of the
universe, an effort characterized by the Nobel Prize Committee
as ``the starting point for cosmology as a precision science.''
We welcome Dr. Mather to today's hearing and look forward to
his testimony.
Chairman Palazzo. Thank you, Ms. Edwards.
I would like to remind our witnesses, please limit your
testimony to five minutes. Your entire written statement will
be included in the record, and at this time we will open
testimony to Dr. Grunsfeld.
TESTIMONY OF DR. JOHN GRUNSFELD,
ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR,
SCIENCE MISSION DIRECTORATE, NASA
Dr. Grunsfeld. Chairman Palazzo, Ranking Member Edwards,
and Members of the Subcommittee, I am delighted to appear
before you to discuss the status of the James Webb Space
Telescope program.
Our mission at NASA is to innovate, explore, discover and
inspire. Science at NASA seeks to answer fundamental questions
about our universe and our place in it. To view the first stars
in the universe, study distant galaxies, probe newborn stars
and planetary systems, and measure the composition of the
atmospheres of planets around other stars, and to let us study
our own outer solar system in detail, as never before possible,
we are building the James Webb Space Telescope.
This next great space observatory remains within budget and
on track to meet its October 2018 launch date. Built to image
and study the faint infrared signals from the earliest stars
and galaxies, JWST features a 21.5-foot diameter primary
mirror, making this the largest telescope ever constructed for
space. JWST will extend our view of the universe, building on
the great discoveries made by the Hubble Space Telescope, and
as the chairman said, many other observatories, with truly
transformational exploration capabilities.
Since re-planning the program nearly four years ago, JWST
has remained within its yearly budgets. Critical to our success
has been adequate funding reserves, enabling the project to
address issues as they arise without deferring significant
work. The project has done an excellent job doing this and
remains on schedule. The FY 2016 budget request for the James
Webb Space Telescope is the same amount called for in the 2011
re-baseline, another indicator that the plan is sound.
JWST is a complex observatory, operating at cryogenic
temperatures, the first of its kind. As a result, we included
additional schedule reserve above NASA's usual formula,
totaling 13 months of funded schedule reserve. This reserve was
distributed throughout the span of the project to allow for
resolution of issues as they occur. In nearly four years, this
reserve has been reduced by only three months so that as of
today, we have ten months of funded schedule reserve. In fact,
we have more schedule reserve today than we had planned to at
this point and more than is customary for NASA missions at this
stage.
This year is an important year for JWST development. We
will complete all of the planned work on the Integrated Science
Instrument Module. The 18 mirror segments will be mounted to
their support structure. The five sunshield membranes will be
manufactured and work will continue on the acquisition of parts
and integration of the spacecraft bus. After 2015, almost all
of the manufacturing will be complete. Our future activities on
JWST will involve integration of major hardware elements and
testing of those components.
As has been noted, there are several technical areas that
currently have the greatest attention from management. For
example, the Mid-InfraRed Instrument requires a special
refrigeration unit, or cryocooler, to cool its detectors to
roughly minus 449 degrees Fahrenheit. The design and
development of this cryocooler has proven to be quite
challenging. Today, two-thirds of the cryocooler hardware has
been delivered. The remaining third of the hardware is
undergoing final assembly and testing with a planned delivery
in three months.
NASA worked closely with GAO in support of the yearly
studies of the JWST program. In response to the latest GAO
recommendations, the JWST project initiated a cost-risk
analysis of the Northrop Grumman prime contract portion of the
JWST program. The results of this analysis show that as of July
2014, the program budget is sufficient to complete the Northrop
tasks on schedule including accommodation for anticipated
risks. The GAO also recommended NASA make changes to our
performance evaluation plans for JWST's award fee contracts. In
response, NASA has modified its performance evaluation plans
for the NASA-Northrop and NASA-Exelis contracts fee for the
award fee determination.
The JWST team has been making exceptional progress with
significant accomplishments being realized on all of the
project elements. Now, nearly four years into the re-plan, the
program is within budget and on schedule with adequate reserves
for both budget and schedule. We are soon to enter the exciting
and challenging integration and test phase. The rigorous cost,
schedule and risk controls that have been employed over the
last four years give me confidence that we will be ready to
launch this ambitious observatory in 2018.
The scientific promise of the James Webb Space Telescope is
great. The team engaged in its development is world-class in
its experience and capabilities. Programs like the James Webb
Space Telescope demonstrate to the world that NASA leads the
way in expanding the frontiers of human inquiry and innovation.
When we build projects like JWST, we push industry to stretch
beyond their capabilities, and they rise to the task,
strengthening our competitiveness.
The success of JWST is a result of a great team working
together including your Subcommittee and GAO, and I want to
thank you both for your efforts.
I am happy to answer any questions you have about this
fantastic observatory. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Grunsfeld follows:]
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Chairman Palazzo. Thank you, Dr. Grunsfeld.
I now recognize Ms. Chaplain.
TESTIMONY OF MS. CRISTINA CHAPLAIN,
DIRECTOR OF ACQUISITION AND SOURCING MANAGEMENT,
U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE (GAO)
Ms. Chaplain. Chairman Palazzo, Ranking Member Edwards, and
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me today to
discuss the GAO's work on the James Webb Telescope. As you may
know, we were reported--we were mandated to report annually on
the program after it experienced a 78 percent cost increase
over its baseline and a 52-month delay. At the time the program
was being re-planned, there were significant concerns raised
about optimistic estimates, low reserves, ineffective
oversight, and poor communication. In response to our mandate,
we have issued three detailed reports on James Webb. Also, we
have been assessing James Webb as part of our broader annual
assessment of NASA's major projects known as the Quick Look,
and I am happy to say that that report is being released today.
This year, we reported that James Webb is still on track
with its 2011 cost and schedule baselines. A great deal of
progress has been made in developing individual components of
the telescope and in overcoming some technical challenges.
However, the project is beginning to lose schedule reserve as
it has struggled to resolve issues such as workmanship and
manufacturing problems with the cryocooler dedicated to the
MIRI instrument. We reported that overall schedule reserve had
declined to 11 months, and another month was lost since our
report was issued. While 10 months is still a lot of time and
well within the criteria the program follows, there are still
reasons to be concerned about the decline.
First, the project faces the very difficult phases of
integration and testing. Most space projects encounter problems
they did not expect to encounter in this phase. Second, a
number of activities have to happen sequentially. The further
you go into integration, the less flexibility you have to
resolve problems in parallel. Third, there are several elements
near the project's critical path which further limits the
project's flexibility.
The types of technical problems James Webb is experiencing
are not unusual for a complex and unique project. They are an
inherent aspect of pushing technological design and engineering
boundaries. What is important when managing such a project is
having a good picture of risk, which can shift day to day, and
having good tools for mitigating risks as they surface and
knowing how they affect your ultimate cost and schedule goals.
NASA has taken an array of actions following the 2011 re-
plan to enable the program to have better insight into risk.
However, we reported that NASA had not updated the cost and
schedule estimate known as the Joint Confidence Level, or JCL,
nor had the contractor updated the risk analyses that underpin
the estimate. In conducting our work in 2014, we determined
that a current and independent cost-risk analysis was needed to
provide the Congress with insight into the remaining work on
the Northrop Grumman prime contract, the largest and most
expensive portion of the work remaining for James Webb.
A key reason for this determination was and continues to be
the significant potential impact that any additional cost
growth on James Webb would have on NASA's broader portfolio
science projects. Our preference would have been for NASA to
have updated the JCL and to have addressed the fundamental
flaws of documents that supported it. We were unable to conduct
this analysis, though, because Northrop Grumman did not allow
us to conduct anonymous interviews of technical experts without
a manager present.
In order to collect unbiased data, interviewees must be
assured that their opinions on risk and opportunities remain
anonymous. This is a key best practice and a fundamental part
of our methodology. Unbiased data would have allowed us to
provide a credible assessment of risks remaining for the work
ahead. Any time we are denied access to people or documents, we
are concerned since it could be a sign that an entity is afraid
of what we will find, but I will balance that by noting that
the program and Northrop have been very candid with us in
discussions about risk and in supplying information about risk
and that our relationships have otherwise been very productive.
Moreover, in response to our findings, NASA agreed to
undertake its own cost-risk analysis of the Northrop contract,
which was provided to us shortly before the hearing. NASA is
also using a new analysis of earned value management data,
which should provide the project with additional insight on how
current risks affect cost and schedule goals. These analyses
look promising, and we look forward to assessing them in our
next review. What will be important for NASA is to see the
results of these analyses to manage its program and to candidly
report on its progress to Congress.
Thank you, and I am happy to answer any questions you have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Chaplain follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Palazzo. Thank you, Ms. Chaplain.
I now recognize Mr. Grant.
TESTIMONY OF MR. JEFFREY GRANT,
VICE-PRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER,
SPACE SYSTEMS, NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORPORATION
Mr. Grant. Chairman Palazzo, Ranking Member Edwards, and
distinguished Members of the Committee, it gives me a great
deal of pleasure to appear before you today on behalf of the
men and women of Northrop Grumman who are working on the James
Webb Space Telescope, and I am honored to appear with you today
with these three other distinguished witnesses.
Mr. Chairman, it has been over just three years ago since I
last appeared before the Committee and discussed the program,
and I am really pleased to report today that the program
remains on track, both in terms of schedule and funding for
successful 2018 launch. That is not to say that we have not had
challenges. A program of this complexity will invariably be
confronted by significant hurdles. We have successfully met the
challenges we knew about in 2011 and most of those that have
occurred since. The MIRI cryocooler, our latest challenge, has
proven a difficult one but one that we continue to make
significant progress in completing the last subassembly of that
complex cooler.
Those Members of the Committee that were here three years
ago may recall the path that we laid out to get to a 2018
launch. It was very challenging, but we communicated that it
was executable. We have a solid design as evidenced by the
successful spacecraft critical design review that occurred in
January of 2014 and a renewed focus and a plan that we are now
executing to.
The major technical risk reduction work is in fact behind
us and we are now entering the phase of the program where the
major risks are in the integration and test phase. Now, despite
that, we anticipate that new challenges will emerge, and we
recognize the need to do better at addressing these. That is
why we continue to incorporate risk reduction activities into
the plan to increase our confidence of meeting that launch
schedule. For example, the optical telescope pathfinder will be
used to trailblaze the optical testing at the Johnson Space
Center in 2017, and the sunshield full-scale development model
will undergo another full-scale deployment test this summer. In
addition, we will be performing early mating of the Optical
Telescope Element and the spacecraft bus this summer in advance
of the flight mate in 2017.
Mr. Chairman, the 2011 re-baseline has been instrumental in
our ability to manage challenges with prudent cost and schedule
reserve across the fiscal years. The distributed schedule slack
has proven crucial in our ability to manage problems as they
have occurred within allowable reserves. In fact, all major
subsystems have above plan schedule margin remaining, and we
currently are maintaining 10 months of funded slack in our
schedule. With less than four years to go before launch, this
amount of schedule contingency is appropriate for a program of
this type and provides adequate contingency for unexpected
challenges that may arise.
Similarly, we continue to evaluate actions to contain cost
and our financial controls have been designed to ensure
contractual discipline to avoid unintended cost.
I want to assure the Committee at every level that Northrop
Grumman remains dedicated to a successful mission overcoming
these hurdles. As we move closer to the 2018 launch date, the
next few years will be critical. Our immediate focus is
finishing the fabrication and assembly of the spacecraft and
sunshield, integrating optics onto the assembled back plane and
completion of the MIRI cryocooler. The focus will then shift to
integration and testing of the Optical Telescope Element, the
Integrated Science Instrument Module, and assembling the
spacecraft and sunshield into a single system. This Committee's
support is essential to keeping the program on cost and on
schedule for that 2018 launch.
Mr. Chairman, I hope that my pride and enthusiasm in JWST
and our partners is evident. From the technicians in the clean
room to our CEO, Northrop Grumman remains fully committed to
the success of this mission. I want to assure the Committee
that we are taking our role seriously and are doing our part to
address the technical and programmatic challenges before us. We
remain confident in launching in 2018 within the
congressionally mandated development cost.
I look forward to working with NASA as it leads this
amazing effort and with the Committee to ensure that this
program is a success. So I want to thank you again for asking
me to appear before your Committee and welcome your questions.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Grant follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Palazzo. Thank you, Mr. Grant.
I now recognize Dr. Mather.
TESTIMONY OF DR. JOHN MATHER,
SENIOR PROJECT SCIENTIST,
JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE,
GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER, NASA
Dr. Mather. Chairman Palazzo, Representative Edwards, and
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the warm welcome.
I am pleased to appear before you to discuss the scientific
mission of the James Webb Space Telescope. I have been a
telescope builder all my life. Since I was about eight years
old, I have wanted to know how did we get here. When I was a
kid, nobody really knew, so I became a telescope builder. Quite
a few years later, I won a Nobel Prize, but despite our
progress, profound questions remain, and I think JWST is the
most important project I could be working on.
JWST will be the premier observatory of the next decade. To
understand JWST's scientific mission, we need to briefly review
our current picture of the universe. The picture has been
painted almost entirely, thanks to work initiated at NASA and
made possible by longstanding Congressional support.
We know today that the universe is nearly 13.8 billion
years old. For the first 400,000 years after the Big Bang, the
universe had no distinct objects in it and was a hot soup of
fundamental particles such as free protons and electrons. Light
could not travel very far through that hot soup. Around the
400,000-year mark, the universe went from being opaque to
transparent. The afterglow of this era is what we see as the
cosmic microwave background. Our NASA team won the Nobel Prize
in 2006 for its study of this radiation.
The emergence of the first stars probably came when the
universe was a few hundred million years old. We think that
these first stars were 30 to 300 times as massive as our Sun
and millions of times as bright, burning for only a few million
years before exploding in supernovae, but we have never seen
them. Even Hubble can't see them. JWST will let us see them.
So why do we need an infrared telescope to see that first
light? Imagine light leaving the first stars nearly 13.4
billion years ago and traveling through space and time to reach
our telescopes. We are essentially seeing these objects as they
were 13.4 billion years ago, but because the universe has been
expanding, the light was emitted by these first stars and
galaxies as visible or ultraviolet light actually got shifted
to redder wavelengths by the time it reached us. So we need to
see it in the infrared.
Also, to unravel the birth and early evolution of stars, we
need to be able to peer into the hearts of dense and dusty
cloud cores where star formation occurs. These regions cannot
be observed at visible light wavelengths as the dust makes such
regions opaque. JWST's infrared instruments will let us do
that.
JWST will also look for planets in other solar systems. The
first planet outside our solar system was discovered in 1992.
Since then, we have come to the realization that planets are in
fact quite common. One essential objective of JWST is to
observe planets orbiting in the habitable zone of their star
where it is possible for liquid water and perhaps even life to
exist.
An infrared telescope needs to be cooled down to a lower
temperature so it does not emit too much of its own infrared
light. To make it cold, we need to put it in deep space where
it can be shielded from the heat and light of both Earth and
the Sun. It needs to be shielded from the infrared energy
produced by its own spacecraft, so JWST will have a tennis-
court-sized sunshield that will unfold in space. One of JWST's
four instruments also requires a refrigerator that uses gaseous
helium to keep its detectors at about negative 449 degrees
Fahrenheit.
At this point, I would like to show you a 1-minute
animation of the deployment of the Webb telescope. Let me see
if it going to go. Yes, so it is going. JWST's primary mirror
will be composed of 18 hexagonal units made of beryllium, a
material light enough that you could pick up one of those units
yourself but which can be machined and polished until it has
essentially perfect curvature. If you were to stretch this
material the length of the United States, the difference
between the peaks and valleys would be about three inches. This
is an amazing telescope.
JWST is an excellent example of what can be done by
international partnerships to solve very difficult engineering
challenges. The United States is leading a very capable
partnership that includes the European and Canadian space
agencies. Scientific discoveries know no boundaries, and
international cooperation has been very successful for NASA.
Beyond its scientific returns, JWST will also be an amazing
educational tool as Hubble has been. Nearly every science
classroom in the country has posters and teaching materials
from Hubble. Every astronomy textbook is illustrated with
Hubble pictures. NASA materials are proven to be among the most
useful to classroom teachers, and JWST will provide great new
material.
We are an exceptional country for even dreaming up
something like JWST, and we are close to seeing this dream
realized. Astronomers will use the telescope to make stunning
discoveries and rewrite our textbooks again.
Thank you for listening, and I would be happy to answer any
questions you have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Mather follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Palazzo. Thank you, Dr. Mather.
I thank the witnesses for their testimony, reminding
Members that Committee rules limit questioning to five minutes.
The chair will at this point open the round of questions. The
chair recognizes himself for five minutes.
Dr. Grunsfeld, GAO's testimony indicates that the JWST
program has ten months of reserve left, down one month from
December. The program is now entering the critical integration
phase and all the subsystems are at risk of becoming the
critical path and driving the overall project schedule. This
limits flexibility precisely at the time flexibility is most
needed. Are you confident that the current plan is robust
enough to address the risks facing the program?
Dr. Grunsfeld. Thank you, Chairman, for that question.
As I mentioned in my testimony, we have a plan that was
assembled at the time of the Joint Confidence Level estimate
through the 2011 re-plan that laid out how we will use all of
our schedule reserve, and that is based on a history of similar
projects and something that we have shared with the GAO
extensively. That burn-down plan assumes that risk is mitigated
as we go along the project to solve problems that we discover,
and so far the project has been doing really well on solving
problems without using that schedule reserve, and as I
mentioned, as a result, we are carrying 10 months of schedule
reserve, which is a little bit more than we expected to have at
this time. That is the best posture to be in, to have a little
bit more schedule reserve than you expect because we are
getting into the test and integration phase where things, you
know, might pop up that we haven't anticipated with this large,
complex observatory, especially as we go into the testing at
the Johnson Space Center with the optics starting with the
pathfinder and then the optics in a couple of years.
So I am confident that with 10 months of schedule reserve
and the known problems we have now that we have adequate
schedule reserve for the July 2018 launch--sorry. The October
2018 launch.
Chairman Palazzo. And this is another question, Dr.
Grunsfeld. The President's budget request for Fiscal Year 2016
is for $620 million. This is consistent with the JWST's 2011
re-plan budget. We are aware that in the original plan, Fiscal
Year 2016 was expected to require less funding because
development of instruments and components was anticipated to
have been completed. However, with so much integration and
testing left to complete, are you confident that the $620
million is still sufficient?
Dr. Grunsfeld. We have the $620 in the 2016 request, and
the out years, which are notional requests, the same numbers
that were in the original re-plan, and in those numbers there
is a considerable amount of budget reserve, and in the same way
as schedule reserve, that budget reserve is there to solve
problems.
Now, in Fiscal Year 2015, we have allocated a lot of that
reserve for known problems through the end of the fiscal year,
and we plan ahead with known problems to try and use reserves.
So at the present time, the $620 million Fiscal Year 2016
request we believe is adequate to complete all of the work as
the funding going out to launch.
Chairman Palazzo. Dr. Grunsfeld, and this is also for Dr.
Mather if he cares to answer, how would a cost overrun or
schedule slip affect other Astrophysics projects, Science
Mission Directorate programs or overall NASA priorities, and
what would NASA cut to ensure that the JWST stays on schedule?
Dr. Grunsfeld. Well, the first priority is to keep JWST on
cost and on budget--sorry--on budget and on schedule, and we
are working very hard to do that. We have adequate cost
reserves and adequate schedule reserve, I believe, to make the
October 2018 launch without, you know, any kind of a cost
overrun.
As you know, any time you have a portfolio of projects and
programs, and NASA has quite a few, in the event something
overruns, you have to look at what the tradeoffs are. I think
it is instructive to look at the Astrophysics budget
historically over many decades, starting with the great
observatories, and certainly through the last ten years, and
you will see that if you look at the combination of
Astrophysics plus James Webb Space Telescope, that budget has
been essentially flat. You know, there were very limited
transfers, if any, from other programs into James Webb, and so,
you know, the cost growth has been contained within this
general Astrophysics budget. So we are confident that with the
budget we have and with the schedule reserve we have, we will
be able to make it on cost and on schedule.
Chairman Palazzo. Dr. Mather, would you care to add to
that?
Dr. Mather. I think actually I agree with that he said
quite well. Thanks.
Chairman Palazzo. So no one wants to really throw out there
what NASA would cut to ensure James Webb Space Telescope stays
on schedule? I don't blame you. Probably not smart.
Ms. Chaplain--and then I will move on to questions--are
there any preliminary observations on the updated cost-risk
analysis that NASA performed that you can share?
Ms. Chaplain. So we just received the analysis fairly
recently. We need to do more in-depth assessments. But on the
surface, they look pretty good, and NASA indicated it followed
not only its own good practices but GAO's as well, so we look
forward to assessing them.
We have also looked at the other earned value management
analysis that they are employing that takes earned value
management a step further and looks at risks integrated with
cost and schedule and can do more predictive things for the
program, and on that surface, that looks good as well.
Chairman Palazzo. Okay. So you haven't had a chance to
definitely dig into it to confirm that they followed NASA's
best practices as well as GAO's best practices but they told
you they did but you are going to dig into it----
Ms. Chaplain. Right.
Chairman Palazzo. --when you have more time?
Ms. Chaplain. Yeah, we need to look at the underlying data
and talk with them about what they did. There are certain
methodological things they probably didn't do that we would
have done like interview the engineers separately and get a
good story on what they thought their costs and risks were at
that point, but the methodology they did employ does--is in
line with good practices.
Chairman Palazzo. And so it also would probably be too
early to ask you whether or not you have recognize any
weaknesses in their analysis?
Ms. Chaplain. Correct. The only--you know, right now we
can't say what the weaknesses are. Correct.
Chairman Palazzo. Well, thank you.
At this time I yield to the Ranking Member, Ms. Edwards.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and again,
thank you to the witnesses.
I want to follow up in looking at the schedule reserve in
light of what still needs to be done, particularly as we enter
the integration and testing phase.
Dr. Grunsfeld, you mentioned--or I think Ms. Chaplain
actually mentioned that we hadn't--there hadn't been a JCL
since the 2011, and so my question--and I understand that is a
really intensive process and we don't want to do something that
is going to take us away from the game of actually getting the
work done, but what is it that we could learn in a JCL or some
formation of that that gives us the kind of confidence that we
need going into this integration and testing phase that the
reserves that are available are sufficient to meet the problems
that inevitably will occur? Dr. Grunsfeld and then Ms.
Chaplain.
Dr. Grunsfeld. The Joint Confidence Level assessment is a
great tool and it is based on a probabilistic assessment so
looking at the probabilities of future events when you don't
know how long individual parts will take to assemble, how much
they will actually cost. So it is a great tool after the study
phase of a mission when we are actually looking at the designs,
and we want to predict, you know, 3, 4, five years out into the
future. When you are actually in implementation of a project
and you have real hardware and you know what the individual
schedules are in great detail, it doesn't make really sense to
do a probabilistic forecast because you already have the
information that is contained in those probability
distributions. So it is really just an inappropriate tool to
use in a very mature project.
Now, a cost-risk analysis is a much more sensitive thing--
sensible thing to do because now you have actual costs, actual
risks. You can't assign probabilities to those risks, and that
is what the cost-risk analysis takes into account and is a best
practice by GAO.
Ms. Edwards. So Ms. Chaplain, do you agree with that?
Ms. Chaplain. We would recommend that you update the JCL at
any rate. It is a good practice to be especially updating the
cost and schedule estimates themselves, and especially because
the program as it has had more experience could feed that
experience into the models. Well, you did say it is an
intensive process and we recognize that. Once you have the
model down and everything in place, it is not as difficult to
update. But as far as updating even the cost and schedule
pieces of that estimate, it is a good practice to do that on a
regular basis.
Ms. Edwards. I guess I just wonder if we have some--if
there are some elements that we already have in place that
allow us the luxury of being able to have a greater confidence
in the program and then it is going to meet the cost, the
budget and assuming the risks. Dr. Grunsfeld?
Dr. Grunsfeld. Thank you. I think the salient point is that
right now we are in the middle of managing a complex project,
and there are various time scales on which we do that. To
perform a new Joint Confidence Level assessment, we would end
up in some number of months with a new estimate and we could
measure against that, but it is kind of like, you know,
changing the goalpost over time if we get numbers that are
different. We think it is much more sensible and as a practical
management approach is--and we accepted the cost-risk analysis
but really is to manage the program with the cost, with the
reserves, measure how we are doing, and that is why we are
using the earned value management, which is a management tool
including some predictive measures, and then we can measure
whether we are ahead or behind those predictions, and all of
the predictions were based on the original JCL. If we ended up
somewhere where we had a very large perturbation, then it would
make more sense to go back and say okay, based on this, you
know, perturbation adjustment, whatever it is where we have to
re-baseline, then we would definitely do the JCL. I think in
the meantime, based on our program guidelines, we will continue
to do the cost-risk analysis and especially continue to manage
on the daily, monthly, quarterly basis our earned value
management and our standard project management processes.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you.
I want to go to Mr. Grant really quickly. So one of the big
risks right now is the status of the technical design of the
cryocooler, and so I wonder if you can tell me whether the
problems that you were faced with are finally behind us? And
you indicated in your prepared statement that all the cooler
subsystems have been delivered to Goddard and JPL except one.
What subsystem is that and when will it be shipped to JPL?
Mr. Grant. Ms. Edwards, the cryocooler program is a very
difficult technical challenge. I think in my prepared statement
that I describe it as at operating at 6 degrees Kelvin, very
much colder than previous cryocoolers we have built, and it
deploys. It is separated from the instrument package by about
30 feet. The mechanical complexities, the heat transfer
complexities, the exported force complexities have made this a
very challenging job, in fact, more challenging than we
anticipated.
We have made great progress, though. We have delivered
components to Goddard and to JPL, and we are now down to the
CCA. It is the cryocooler assembly that is in test today, bake-
out testing, and we are--we have got significant performance
measurements made that show it meets its spec, which is great
news, and now we are in the final stages of assembly, and we
are scheduled to deliver that to JPL in June of this year.
Ms. Edwards. So we will be asking about that because I
think the problem is that we are gone down now to 10 months of
reserve, and the question is, how much of the cryocooler that
has been such a problem is going to eat into that reserve to
leave enough reserve to stay on budget and on cost for the
integration and testing phase, and with that, I think my time
is like just done. Thanks.
Chairman Palazzo. I now recognize Mr. Brooks from Alabama.
Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Grunsfeld and Dr. Mather, will you please provide
examples of how the James Webb Space Telescope, the
Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy, the
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, as it is
commonly known, will work together in exoplanet research?
Dr. Grunsfeld. Certainly, and I appreciate that question.
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite is very much like the
Kepler satellite that has discovered thousands of planets
orbiting stars in our galaxy. Kepler has been staring at a
region of space that is rather far away from the Earth, and it
sees as the planet goes between us and the stars a little blink
of light. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite is going to
be very similar except instead of looking at this one distant
region of space and the constellation Cygnus, it is going to
survey all the nearest stars around our home solar system,
around the Earth, and so it is going to give us the address of
where there are transiting exoplanets around each of those
stars.
The advantage we have of a planet that transits, that goes
between us and the star, is that we can actually then measure
the components of the atmosphere as that starlight goes through
the atmosphere of the planet, and so having the locations and
types of all of these exoplanets will allow the James Webb
Space Telescope to do spectroscopy or to break the light from
those atmospheres into its component colors and allow us to
determine, you know, whether there is water vapor in the
atmosphere, whether there is, you know, characteristics that
might indicate even high-altitude clouds, for instance, color
changes that would tell us the composition of those
atmospheres. So this is an extraordinarily exciting
possibility.
The Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy works
in a different wavelength than James Webb Space Telescope. The
Hubble Space Telescope operates from the near-ultraviolet to
the near-infrared and encompasses the colors that we see--
visible light. The James Webb Space Telescope picks up in that
near-infrared and extends out to the mid-infrared and the SOFIA
observatory extends from the mid-infrared further out, and so
there are many objects where we want to do spectroscopy to
understand the composition, for instance, of molecular clouds
that contain organic materials, very much like what we are made
out of, and it will be the synthesis of the Hubble, the James
Webb Space Telescope, the SOFIA observatory and also on the
ground, the ALMA, Atacama Large Millimeter Array, that is
really going to be able to put together the picture of how
these objects work--how these objects, you know, were formed,
how they evolve, how organic molecules in these objects formed
that eventually may have seeded planets like the Earth before
we were around.
Mr. Brooks. Dr. Mather, do you have anything to add?
Dr. Mather. Yeah, just a few things. One thing to mention
about the Stratospheric Observatory is that they can fly
frequently with different instruments that are improved as the
technology improves, and they have already included--there are
some extremely high-spectral resolution equipment. Spectral
resolution separates the colors into over 100,000 different
wavelengths, and from that you can determine isotopic
compositions and all kinds of remarkable details about the
things you are looking at. So it is very complementary to and
different from the other observatories we were talking about.
So it is not something we could put into the James Webb
Telescope.
Mr. Brooks. As you all may recall, there was an initial
problem with the Hubble Telescope that required astronauts
going up to fix it. Should we encounter a difficulty with the
James Webb Space Telescope and the need to repair it, can it be
repaired, and if so, how?
Dr. Grunsfeld. I have already volunteered that if there is
a problem, you all can send me.
Mr. Brooks. We will need a spacecraft first. I hope NASA
still----
Dr. Grunsfeld. We will need a spacecraft, and if we have
problems, it may be a one-way trip, which you all say I will
deserve.
Mr. Brooks. Well, I prefer the two-way trip.
Dr. Grunsfeld. But the first thing is that we are working
extraordinarily hard, and the folks on the project and at
Northrop Grumman and all of the contractors to make sure that
we don't need to go to James Webb for servicing. There is an
enormous amount of redundancy built in for the actuating parts
of the James Webb Space Telescope because it does have to
origami, unfold like a transformer. So we have dual motors, we
have dual sensors, a lot of testing to make sure that
everything will deploy as required.
While there is no servicing or fixing designed into it, as
a relatively small mitigation, we are putting rendezvous
sensors on the outside of the spacecraft so that if we ever had
to go there for some reason or if, you know, there was some
future reason to go, we would be able to, you know, align a
spacecraft for docking. But otherwise there is no planned
servicing.
Mr. Brooks. So if I understand correctly, the James Webb
Space Telescope is designed for docking but right now we are
inhibited because we do not have a vehicle that can get us
there. Is that a fair statement?
Dr. Grunsfeld. I wouldn't quite say it is designed for
servicing or for docking, but because it has a payload adapter
ring, which is how it was attached or will be attached to the
Ariane 5 rocket, that ring is, by definition, a place that one
could interface with, and we just think it is prudent to put on
some sensors, some little stickers essentially with fiducial
marks so that if we ever did have to go there, we would know
how to orient ourselves.
Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see my time is
expired.
Chairman Palazzo. I now recognize Mr. Beyer.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you Mr. Chairman, and I thank all of you
for being with us today.
I have some science questions on JWST, and now that we have
a Nobel Prize-winning physicist here, Dr. Mather, Dr. Grunsfeld
said that JWST extends our view of the universe, and you said
it the most important project you could be working on, so three
quick questions.
Will this give us insight into dark energy and dark matter?
Second, the Planck Epoch, zero to ten the negative forty four
seconds before the Big Bang, I understand from visiting CERN
that we can only get so far back in understanding how close we
are to zero. Does this help us get farther back? And finally,
the asymmetry of matter and antimatter, you know, the present
and the universe, will this help us understand that fundamental
asymmetry?
Dr. Mather. Gosh, such easy questions.
Mr. Beyer. It is $8.8 billion.
Dr. Mather. So I will answer them. For the dark energy,
which was discovered based on measurements with the Hubble
Space Telescope, we will be able to pursue the same technique
only a lot better because we can see farther and we can use
infrared light to do it. So we know the supernovae, which are
used as standard candles, are better candles, better standards
measured in the infrared. So number one, yes, we will pursue
the dark energy.
Dark matter is observed indirectly because it has
gravitation. So it bends light, and we have seen that in many
places, sometimes even--recently we found a supernova that was
seen four times in different places as the light was bent four
different directions around a galaxy and between. So we will be
continuing to pursue that method of measuring the presence of
dark matter through its gravitational effects.
About the Planck Epoch, that is probably outside our
territory. That is something that we expect to pursue through
measurements of the polarization of the cosmic microwave
background radiation, and there is already work underway, and
there was a probably false alarm about a year ago that I am
sure you saw where claims were made about gravitational waves
of the early universe. Better measurements will come out soon,
I think. We certainly expect them.
About the asymmetry of matter and antimatter, I don't know
of any measurement that we could make that would affect that
question. It is one of the most puzzling mysteries of science,
and we know that there is no place in the universe that has
got--that is like a dark matter--sorry--an antimatter galaxy.
If there were, we would see an area where the two regions were
colliding and there would be annihilation energy coming out. So
we are pretty sure the whole universe is full of ordinary
matter, and there isn't any antimatter left except tiny traces.
So we will work on it but I don't think we are going to answer
that question.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you, Dr. Mather, very much.
Dr. Grunsfeld, I was looking at the very sophisticated
piece of literature here, our comic book, and it talks about
how JWST is going to be in orbit around this theoretical point
L2, a straight line from the Sun to the Earth L2. It is very
cool, but what is at L2 that is going to allow that to orbit
around? All my understanding of orbiting is, it is based on
gravitational forces, and--or is it just self-correcting
engines on the satellite itself?
Dr. Grunsfeld. The L refers to Lagrange, which was a
mathematician, and he computed that there would be these points
in space where the gravitational force of the Earth and the Sun
are balanced such that it is kind of stable so that if you put
something there it would stay there. And so if you think about
the Earth and the Sun, between the Earth and the Sun there is a
point that you can orbit and an object would get dragged along
by the Earth at the same speed as the Earth as it rotates the
Sun. We call that the L1 Lagrange point, and we just sent the
DSCVR mission there, for instance.
The L2 point is on the other side of the Earth and it is an
imaginary point just because there is nothing there--James Webb
will be there. But it is gravitationally stable but it is not
perfectly stable. If James Webb were to drift off, we would
have to fire some little jets to come back, and so that is that
point.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you, Dr. Grunsfeld.
And one last question. Mr. Grant, Ms. Chaplain talked about
her difficulty doing the anonymous interviews with Northrop
Grumman folks without a manager present. We had a lot of
discussion here on secret science, on transparency. What was
Northrop Grumman's problem with allowing the anonymous
interviews or the interviews without managers present?
Mr. Grant. The issue that we had when this request was made
was, a request to interview about 30 of our--we call them CAMs,
cost accountant managers, which are reasonably junior
employees. They are responsible for small work packages. And I
became concerned when the interview technique, it wasn't just
anonymous but isolating our junior employees with a group from
GAO, and these are people who are not prepared to come testify
before Congress or in fact in this kind of environment, and so
I had a great fear that this interview technique would result
in frankly my employees being very, very concerned. This is not
how they would normally do their business. And so in my
discussions with Ms. Chaplain, I offered in fact some
alternatives. We are very open to having transparency and full
access to the data, but this kind of process to our individual
employees concerned me enough that I said we will take the
management of JWST aside but I wanted somebody from the
functional organization so a mechanical engineer assigned to
the James Webb Space Telescope program would have his
functional manager with him in this interview process. So she
is accurate in saying no manager so I was willing to separate
the JWST team management from this interview process but
unwilling to send these employees in by themselves. So that is
the essence.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Palazzo. The chair now recognizes Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Grunsfeld and Dr. Mather, how would a cost overrun or
schedule slip affect other Astrophysics projects, Science
Mission Directorate programs or overall NASA priorities? And
you can decide who goes first on that.
Dr. Grunsfeld. Well, Mr. Johnson, thank you for that
question. The first part of my answer is that currently we are
on budget, on schedule. We have adequate budget reserves and
schedule reserves to make our October 2018 launch date.
Mr. Johnson. But that wasn't the question. The question
was, how would a cost overrun or schedule slip affect those
projects?
Dr. Grunsfeld. In the event we were to encounter some
problem that required, you know, a cost overrun or some kind of
slip, as we balance all of our projects and programs, you know,
we manage sometimes to an ensemble level, and it is just the
realities of Federal budgeting process. So if some project does
overrun, then we have to look at, you know, future projects
typically to delay them or, you know, change the phasing of
funding to allow to keep, you know, the projects that are close
to completion on track.
Mr. Johnson. Dr. Mather, do you have anything to add to
that?
Dr. Mather. No. He says the same thing I would say.
Mr. Johnson. Okay. Do you have a list of what those
priorities might be? What would NASA cut to ensure JWST stays
on schedule? Do you have any specifics?
Dr. Grunsfeld. So at the moment, in the Astrophysics budget
and the JWST budget, you know, if you look at the sum of those
two, you know, that is approximately the historical level of
the NASA Astrophysics budget, and as the chairman said in his
opening remarks, one of the big questions going forward in
future budget eras is where will the funding for the James Webb
Space Telescope go as it ramps down from its main development
phases, and NASA has not yet decided on what that future
mission might be. Several Members have discussed the WFIRST
mission, Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope. This was
suggested by the Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics
in the last round and is a major priority for Astrophysics and
something that we are studying in great detail. NASA has not
decided to go forward with that. Once we do decide that that is
a new mission and we are examining that, then the launch date
for that would be an adjustable parameter based on available
budget, technical and, you know, something we would manage too.
Mr. Johnson. Okay. Thank you.
Ms. Chaplain, what does GAO see as the greatest risk to the
JWST program?
Ms. Chaplain. At this point the greatest risk is on the
technical side as they first resolve the technical challenges
that face them today like with the cryocooler, and as they get
deeper in integration and testing, what problems they might
encounter there and how are they going to fix them.
The business side is not as much of a risk at this point
because they do have a lot of schedule reserve, they do have
pretty good tools in place for managing the program. They are
pretty rigorous about tracking what is going on, so in our
view, the issues now that we will be intensely focusing on are
technical issues as well as risk management issues.
Mr. Johnson. Okay. Well, back to you again, Ms. Chaplain.
You said your annual Quick Look review of NASA's major programs
was just released, so how does JWST compare to other NASA
programs in terms of planning, management, performance and
execution?
Ms. Chaplain. So it doesn't stack up very well when you
consider the cost growth that has already occurred. If you take
all the projects together, there is 29--25.9 percent cost
growth overall in the development side, but if you took James
Webb out of that picture, the cost growth for NASA projects
would go down to 2.4 percent. So just its nature, it is a big
project on the portfolio. It comprises 33 percent of the major
projects right now, so anything that happens there does have an
impact on other programs, and that prior cost growth, though it
hasn't come back, is still there kind of overwhelming the other
projects at this point.
Mr. Johnson. Okay. All right. Well, thank you, and thank
you all for being with us.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the remainder of my time.
Chairman Palazzo. The chair now recognizes Mr. Babein--Mr.
Babin. I just wanted to see if you were going to correct me on
it.
Mr. Babin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to thank the witnesses for being here. Reading
your bios, very notables, and long ago in the line of
questioning, I think Dr. Grunsfeld actually did 58 hours of
spacewalking in EVAs to do some of those Hubble repairs. Is
that not the case?
Dr. Grunsfeld. That is correct.
Mr. Babin. Well, thank you. Thank you for all your
distinguished careers, and I appreciate you two, and
congratulations on your Nobel, Dr. Mather.
I represent Texas District 36, which has Johnson Space
Center in it, and if I am not mistaken, I think some of this
testing, quite a bit of the testing, on JWST is going on at
Johnson Space Center, which I am very proud to represent and
certainly want to see great big things continue to go and
happen at JSC.
But in light of all the cost overruns and the problems that
we have had, I do have some questions about the project, and I
would like to ask Dr. Grunsfeld and Ms. Chaplain how confident
you are that JWST has enough resources now, both in terms of
cost and schedule reserves, to execute the commitments that we
now--that you now have.
Dr. Grunsfeld. I am very confident that, you know, as of
now we have 10 months of schedule reserve and we are
maintaining adequate budget reserves to meet the October 2018
launch date. There are a number of issues that, you know, I
worry about, if you were to say what keeps me awake at night.
We are making great progress on the cryocooler. You know, there
are a bunch of technical issues. We have a lot of great
communication across the whole project now from, you know,
daily meetings that the project manager has and communication
with us. We have our new program director. We announced that
yesterday, Eric Smith. You know, he has, you know, daily,
weekly, monthly meetings. We meet routinely with GAO to talk
about our progress. But there are some things that we just
don't control, and for instance, one of those is that we have
three major tests at the Johnson Space Center in that great
chamber A, and we are starting some of the testing now on the
pathfinder, and if any of the Members have an opportunity to go
there, I highly recommend that you see this. This is where we
tested the Apollo Command Module. It is enormous, and that
reflects the great size of the James Webb Space Telescope.
But one of my worries has been, you know, that we have
three multiple-month test periods at the Johnson Space Center,
and having lived there for 18 years, I have had to leave my
home occasionally for hurricanes. You know, what happens if we
are testing during a hurricane. And so I have interrogated the
project on what is our mitigation, and I have been down to the
Johnson Space Center several times talking to the engineers and
the operators of that chamber, and they have great plans in
place, and the James Webb Space Telescope can actually survive
through a hurricane without significant interruptions of the
testing, and you know, they have assured me that even those
kind of risks are incorporated into our modeling to make the
October 2018 launch date. So I am very confident that we have a
very sound plan.
Mr. Babin. That is great. Thank you. And Ms. Chaplain, did
you want to add anything to that?
Ms. Chaplain. So 10 months of reserve is a long time, and
the cost reserve is very healthy, and I don't often get to
testify on programs with that kind of luxury in terms of
reserve, but it is also a very complicated program and its test
program itself is 7 years--integration and testing is seven
years long, and the thing to keep in mind with 10 months of
reserve is, you need certain amounts of time for each phase of
testing so you can only apply certain amounts of reserves with
each phases. So if a major problem does come up, you don't
necessarily have 10 whole months to fix it without disrupting
other parts of the schedule. So we are still concerned about
schedule but they are in a healthy position at this point.
Mr. Babin. Thank you. Thank you very much.
One other question, and this would be for Dr. Grunsfeld.
You actually--both you and Ms. Chaplain addressed this to a
certain extent a while ago, but does NASA share GAO's concern
about the amount of schedule risk remaining in the program?
Dr. Grunsfeld. I would say absolutely. In terms of, you
know, my personality but also that of Robert Lightfoot, our
Associate Administrator, Charlie Bolden, you know, we are all
very concerned about the risks and the schedule reserve in the
sense that we are for every single program we manage. You know,
I generally would not say that I am comfortable with any of our
projects because that is just my personality and that is one of
the ways that we do so well in managing our projects and
programs is, you know, to stay a little bit uncomfortable and
keeps us on edge.
Mr. Babin. I understand.
Dr. Grunsfeld. I am confident but I wouldn't ever say
comfortable until we launch. The best place for a spacecraft
like James Webb Space Telescope is in space.
Mr. Babin. Amen. Thank you very much, all of you, and thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Palazzo. Thank you, Mr. Babin.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Posey.
Mr. Posey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I really appreciate the incredibly wonderful and exciting
things that you do and what the James Webb Space Telescope will
do for us. Obviously I have a serious interest in gaining and
maintaining public support for our space programs. There is a
lot of misconception, as you all know. Poll after poll has
shown people think we spend as much as 25 percent of our budget
on our space program when you know it is less than one-half of
one percent, and they hear you are spending over $600 million
more on a space telescope and they say what is in it for me. I
mean, how do you articulate to the average American family, who
may have no idea what the telescope does, how it is going to
benefit them?
Dr. Grunsfeld. Well, let me start and then maybe ask John
Mather to comment additionally.
I mentioned in my testimony that one of the great things we
do in this country is challenge industry to do hard things in
the name of science, in the name of fundamental questions about
our universe, and when we challenge industry to do that, it
forces them to grow. It increases our competitiveness. It also
attracts the best and brightest minds to come to the United
States and to rise in the United States to help solve these
problems, to study astronomy, to study astrophysics so perhaps
they can win a Nobel Prize in the future.
Mr. Posey. But that may be a little bit over the head of
the average taxpayer is what I am talking about. This booklet
you have is really excellent material for those of us who
already have an interest in it and for a teacher who has a
chance to maybe impart that hunger into students, but I am just
wondering, you know, how we quantify, you know, how it benefits
the national security, the economic stability or the survival
of the species that we make that connection when we are talking
about this expensive product which is very necessary for our
future, I think, but that we haven't really managed to connect
with the average American about the importance.
Dr. Grunsfeld. There are some circles where I can talk
about the contributions of the James Webb Space Telescope as
the largest space telescope we have ever built, segmented
optics, the first time we will have flown a large space
telescope with segmented optics to, say, national security. The
average person that I talk to when I am giving an astronaut
talk, you know, they don't have an appreciation of that.
But I am glad you mentioned, you know, the effect on
teachers. The Hubble Space Telescope, for instance, reaches
more than half a million teachers a year, 6 million students a
year, and is viewed by 9 million people, and those----
Mr. Posey. I heard that. I got that, and I love that----
Dr. Grunsfeld. --are important.
Mr. Posey. --but, you know, how do we connect with the
average American family who is, you know, worried about their
job, you know, worried about feeding their family, being able
to finance their kids' education? How can we explain to them
that spending the money on this telescope, which I think is
very important, obviously, should be that important to them?
Dr. Grunsfeld. I think, you know, if you talk about NASA,
generally my experience has been that people understand why we
invest in NASA. We are investing in America's future. We are
investing in future technology. We are investing in innovation.
And most people have the same questions that we have as
scientists, that drove us to become scientists, about, you
know, where did we come from, where are we going, are we alone
in the universe, and that NASA is providing the tools to answer
those questions. Those fundamental questions are the same for
everybody, and when you can talk about that we are only
spending, you know, less than half of one percent of our
Federal investment on investing in the future, I think people
do resonate with that.
Mr. Posey. Doctor?
Dr. Mather. I would certainly agree that that is why we do
it and why the public loves us to do it. I used to ride the
subway in New York City and i would be sitting there with my
astronomy book, and people would say what is that, tell me
about it, where did we come from. The public is really
interested in this, and when they are not working to support
their families, they say where did I come from, are we the only
ones here in this entire universe or not, and I think we are
getting towards being able to answer their questions. People
just have a deep passion to know where did we come from, our
genealogy, our history, everything about how we got here to
this amazing Committee room here in Washington, D.C. They want
to know how did that happen. So I think we should help them
answer that question.
Mr. Posey. Thank you.
Ms. Edwards. Will the gentleman yield for just a minute?
Mr. Posey. Yes, I will yield.
Ms. Edwards. Mr. Posey, perhaps Dr. Grunsfeld might want to
respond to your question by answering us how the JWST program
has enabled a number of improvements in measuring human eyes
and the diagnosis of ocular diseases and improved surgery for
eyes as a connection to people. Dr. Grunsfeld?
Dr. Grunsfeld. I would love to talk about that. Thank you
very much.
You know, sometimes what we call spinoffs are bit
tangential, but in this case, and Dr. Mather mentioned it, I
was in a very early James Webb Space Telescope meeting where
they were talking about the smoothness of the mirrors, and I
started scribbling in my notebook to figure out what if you
stretched one of those mirrors, a single 1.5-meter beryllium
mirror, to the size of the United States, how big would the
bumps be, and he already told you, the average bumps would only
be about 3 inches tall if you stretched those mirrors to the
size of the United States. This is an astonishingly smooth
surface. In order to generate that amazingly smooth surface,
you know, the engineers at Ball Aerospace had to come up, you
know, with algorithms and techniques of measuring what the
shape of the mirror is to that extremely fine detail, and that
is actually--those tools have already been incorporated into
the kind of techniques and tools that ophthalmologists use to
measure the shape of the human eyeball in order for the laser
surgery and other techniques, you know, to correct human
vision. And so there is many, many examples of these kind of
things.
Mr. Posey. Well, that was kind of my point, you know. I
mean, listen, we mostly sell steak in space, you know, and Winn
Dixie and Publix and all the supermarkets don't advertise
steak, they advertise sizzle, you know, and so we are all
interested in the steak but the public needs to know a little
bit more of the sizzle, you know. And if somebody asks about,
you know, decrease the possibility or probability of you going
blind because of ocular disease by 50 percent, well, that is
something the average guy can identify with, you know, rather
than--you know, we talk so often in platitudes.
We want to know where we came from, where we are going to
go. We realize that ultimately someday, someday humanity will
have to leave this planet or perish, and we know that, but it
is so far away that the average family doesn't want to worry
about that right now, you know, let 50,000 generations from now
worry about that. But we have to make our contribution to
getting us off this planet when the time comes as we go.
But I find that it is so important to quantify space's
direct benefits to people to gain that public support. Like I
said, they want some of the sizzle. You know, the meat doesn't
interest them right now. They want the sizzle like supermarkets
sell.
Dr. Grunsfeld. If the chairman would indulge me I have one
more small story.
Chairman Palazzo. The chairman will indulge you.
Dr. Grunsfeld. Thank you. I was doing an astronaut visit--
so I am in a blue flight suit--to a small company outside of
Chicago called Numerical Precision, and they are a machine
shop, and we were walking through, and one of the engineers,
technicians showed me a part that he was building that he was
very proud of, and it was a little circular ring, and I don't
know why but I recognized it, and it was--most of their work is
defense work or much of it. And so I started asking him about
it, and this is a company that had made tools that I used on
the Hubble Space Telescope and they were very proud of that,
and I was there to thank them.
And so I asked him what program is that for, and he said I
don't know. His manager said let me look, and he comes back and
he says some NASA program, and I think okay, that has piqued my
interest, you know, maybe I know this part. And it turns out it
was a part for the James Webb Space Telescope. The story the
plant manager had told me is that this part was very hard for
them to make and it is made by a special technique involving
machine tools that only the United States has been able to
refine, and he said that by building this difficult part for
the James Webb Space Telescope they developed new techniques
and they had actually by using those techniques been able to
attract a lot of business, and their biggest problem was not
the new business but the ability to hire young people to run
these machine tools, and he said that by working on NASA
projects is one of his biggest draws to be able to bring in
young technicians, and these are people with--high school
graduates who like to use computers.
Now, I have a son who is soon to be a high school graduate
and he spends a lot of time on computers, a little bit
different than we expect but he is very talented now at, you
know, controlling computers for things like computer games, and
he is now also the head of his robotics team in high school,
which is a similar sort of thing. So we have plenty of young
students who would be great at machining, which is now a very
exciting field, and the James Webb Space Telescope helped
contribute to this company being able to hire people, and I
certainly think jobs are what a lot of people think about, and
these are very high-paying jobs.
Chairman Palazzo. The chair now recognizes Mr. Lucas.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the
panel being here and their insights, and if we could for a
moment slide perhaps back to a few more nuts and bolts.
The challenge, I think, has been expressed rather clearly
by all of you that James Webb is so unique or so different than
Hubble in that whatever we put up has to work the first time.
Those of us who were paying attention 25 years ago remember the
initial trauma after the launch of Hubble, the miraculous
repair job and the wondrous things accomplished from there and
all of the service work and improvements and additions made,
but this is a different creature. This is a one-time shot. So I
listened very closely to Director Chaplain's comments about the
seven years of testing and the various components and this and
that and the other.
Let us talk for a moment about this cryocooler business
because my understanding is, we have to keep James Webb at an
incredibly cool temperature to function, and that we are in
effect creating technology as we go here or developing
techniques to make this possible. Discuss for just a moment how
complicated that particular issue, for instance, is, whoever
would care to answer the question. Thank you, Mr. Grant.
Mr. Grant. I will be happy to. At Northrop Grumman
Aerospace Systems, we have been building space-qualified
cryocoolers now for many, many years, and they have flown
successfully on many missions, both scientific and
meteorological, and so we build these cryocoolers that operate
at very low frequencies or very low vibrations so they don't
disturb the imaging system that they are attached to, and they
have to operate very efficiently so they have a very efficient
conversion of solar power to the mechanical compressor power.
The unique elements of the MIRI cooler are, we have to do those
things in addition to cooling far colder than we have put a
space-qualified cooler at before. Coolers we build and operate
today operate at about 70 degrees Kelvin. This one operates at
6 degrees Kelvin. And the whole observatory is operating in the
optics at about 40 degrees Kelvin. So the instrument is cooler
than the optical background temperature.
Mr. Lucas. And reminding us that zero Kelvin is absolute
zero.
Mr. Grant. Correct, All molecular motion stops. You know,
it is very cold. So it has to operate very cold and has to
operate very efficiently. It has to export very low export
forces and it has to operate with the cooler separated from the
cold head assembly on the instrument module by about 30 feet.
So there is an array of technical complexities in this cooler
that made it far more difficult than coolers we have built
before.
I would say the good news is--well, the program started,
and there wasn't even going to be a cooler on it. It was going
to be a dewer, a solid block of gas that would be frozen and
then sublimated over time to cool the instrument. That would
work, but it was very heavy and also runs out of gas. So the
cooler has the possibility of operating in fact as some of ours
have for decades.
So we went to the cryocooler design in about 2006, if I
recall, and since that time, we have made significant progress.
Just this past year we got data that confirms its flight
performance so we know it gets cold enough, it is efficient and
has low exported forces.
So we are at the point now in this development where most
of the subassemblies have been delivered and this one last one
is in its final stages of integration and test, so we are--it
has been a very long, tough, challenging road for us to be on,
but as we speak today, we are very close to the last delivery.
Mr. Lucas. Mr. Mather, thinking back to 20-some years ago
when all of the issues were addressed on Hubble and it became
kind of a ``wow'' moment for most of the human race that cared,
all goes well, all the targets are met, all the flight
operations are smooth, we park it way out there in the proper
place, everything switches on, are we going to have that
magnitude of a ``wow'' moment again?
Dr. Mather. I certainly expect so. I wouldn't be doing this
if I didn't think so, and by the way, I wanted to add one thing
to----
Mr. Lucas. Please.
Dr. Mather. --his testimony that only one of the
instruments requires that cooler. The telescope and the other
three instruments cool down by themselves just because they are
hidden behind the big umbrella. So there is a risk but it is
not a huge risk if there is any problem with that.
So we are certainly going to point the telescope at
beautiful things and get great pictures. We expect amazing
discoveries ranging from the first stars and galaxies to the
formation of stars and planets close to him in places like that
beautiful eagle nebula. We certainly want to see those little
exoplanets like Earth if there are any orbiting around stars
way out there to see if they are wet, like do they have oceans.
So there is this huge array of wonderful questions to answer,
and I think nature may just cooperate and give us answers. So
that is our plan, and I think it will be very exciting times
for us.
Mr. Lucas. So as they would say in the coffee shops back
home, if something is winking at us, we will know it.
Dr. Mather. Yes.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, gentlemen and ladies. I appreciate it
very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Palazzo. Thank you, Mr. Lucas. We enjoy talking
about the nuts and bolts as much as Mr. Posey's steak and
sizzle.
I want to thank the witnesses for their testimony and the
Members for their questions. The record will remain open for
two weeks for additional written comments and written questions
from Members.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:34 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Dr. John Grunsfeld
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Ms. Cristina Chaplain
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Mr. Jeffrey Grant
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Dr. John Mather
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Appendix II
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Additional Material for the Record
Statement submitted by full Committee Ranking Member
Eddie Bernice Johnson
Good morning. I want to join Chairman Palazzo and Ranking
Member Edwards in welcoming our witnesses. I look forward to
hearing from each of you today.
We are here to discuss the James Webb Space Telescope-JWST-
which is scheduled to launch in October of 2018. This morning's
hearing is not the first this Committee has held on JWST. We
held a hearing in December 2011 after the project was replanned
following an independent review that found significant cost and
schedule growth. Today we will hear how well NASA and its main
industry partner, Northrop Grumman, are sticking to that plan.
And given the complexity involved in building and testing a
telescope of JWST's magnitude, it should come as no surprise
that we will also hear of the many challenges that need to be
addressed before the project is completed. I hope we can be
assured today that NASA and its partners are taking all
necessary steps to keep JWST on track.
We need to provide the necessary Congressional funding to
ensure this project gets completed on time and on budget,
consistent with the National Academies' decadal survey that
ranked this telescope as the top priority for space-based
astrophysics over a decade ago. I am pleased that Dr. Mather,
the 2006 Nobel Laureate in physics, is here today to tell us
about the transformational science that JWST will carry out,
including making observations that will teach us about how
galaxies, stars and planets formed--the very roots of our
Universe. I also hope to hear about JWST's capabilities for
studying extrasolar planets for clues that could signal the
potential for life there. The nation has taken on an impressive
challenge in developing, building, and completing JWST, and we
need to be good stewards of our taxpayers' investment in this
project.
That said, I have no doubt that JWST's discoveries will
rewrite the astronomy textbooks, just as the Hubble's science
has already done. I can't imagine a better legacy. Because
somewhere in a backyard, on a school playground, or in a
bedroom with an open window on a dark starry night, there's a
child who wonders what the Universe is all about, and JWST's
observations will feed that child's imagination and hunger for
knowledge.Thank you and I yield back the balance of my time.
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