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Planning For Life After Hubble
By BRIAN BERGER
Space News Staff Writer
posted: 05:15 pm ET, 16 September 2003
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Anne Kinney, Director, NASA’s Astronomy And Physics Division
If anyone fully understands the contributions NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has made to astronomy, it is Anne Kinney.
Early on in a 14-year career at the Space Science Telescope Institute in Baltimore, Kinney was involved in the development of one of the Hubble’s original instruments, the Faint Object Spectrograph. She also was responsible for public outreach efforts at the institute, which manages Hubble’s science operations and data analysis.
Having seen the Hubble Space Telescope grow from a national laughingstock to the undisputed crown jewel of NASA’s science program, Kinney, an astrophysicist by training, might be forgiven for a sentimental fondness for the program. But with a decision on whether to de-orbit the 12-year-old facility at the end of the decade looming, Kinney insists she is prepared to let go.
In making her decision, Kinney will weigh the findings of noted physicist John Bahcall, whom she asked to review NASA’s plan for transitioning from Hubble to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) early next decade. Bahcall recommended in August that NASA carry out two more Hubble servicing missions, so long as they don’t interfere with other research priorities.
Kinney is expected to reach a decision by year’s end. In the meantime, she has her hands full making sure the JWST remains on track for a 2011 launch, and overseeing the early development of several other challenging missions, including the Space Interferometry Mission, Constellation X and the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. Her NASA division also is laying the groundwork for a future telescope powerful enough to spot Earth-like planets around nearby stars.
Kinney spoke recently with Space News staff writer Brian Berger.
Q. Forgetting about budget reality for a minute, is there value in having a visible-light telescope like Hubble always on orbit?
A. The really cutting-edge science is being done with 10-meter telescopes on the ground, and there are discussions under way about building 30-meter telescopes. I cannot believe that a 2.4-meter telescope like Hubble will be able to compete with a 30-meter telescope with state-of-the-art optics. Space-based observations are too expensive to be used for anything but cutting-edge science. Hubble is a costly backup.
Q. Were there any surprises in the Bahcall panel’s recommendations on Hubble?
A. The panel really just wrote down the three obvious options: no more servicing missions, one more servicing mission or two more servicing missions. They made very clear that they want NASA to go ahead with the servicing mission already planned and then hold a competition to decide whether to conduct a second servicing mission.
Q. What is NASA going to do?
A. It’s a thoughtful report and we will have to spend time thinking about it. The suggestion to compete the second servicing mission against other uses of the money is a good idea as long as you can compete like against like. Right now, we don’t have a comparable mission for it to compete against for funding. It’s hard to accommodate a recommendation that is very different from the way we do business. We also don’t have a budget line for a second servicing mission.
Q. How will NASA reach a decision on Hubble’s future?
A. There are five pieces of the puzzle to put together: the Bahcall report, the Columbia Accident Investigation Report, the Return to Flight Report and an internal propulsion module study being done at Marshall Space Flight Center and Goddard Space Flight Center.
Q. Would NASA consider boosting Hubble to a storage orbit?
A. No. It’s not an option.
Q. Is the JWST back on track?
A. If you compare the JWST today to where we were a year ago, we’ve gone from gas to liquid on our way to becoming a solid. We’ve chosen the prime contractor, we’ve established a science working group, chosen principal investigators for all our instruments and we have a solution for the mid-infrared instrument. We’ve had a fabulous year.
Q. JWST began 2003 facing a $300 million overrun to its $1.6 billion budget. How did this happen and what did you do to eliminate most of that cost growth?
A. If you leave a scientist alone in a room with an instrument design and come back in a couple of months, the instrument design is more complex. That’s what happened on JWST. Most of the cost reduction was achieved by simplifying the instruments, which not only saves money, but gives you instruments that can be built on time and within budget. We pushed as hard as we could. Any more and we would have had to eliminate the mid-infrared instrument, which would not have been acceptable to the science community.
Q. You eliminated most of the $300 million projected cost growth from the JWST. How will you solve the remaining $60 million shortfall?
A. It’s hard to explain. NASA’s astronomy and astrophysics budget is $1 billion a year. I promised the JWST program I’d come up with an additional $30 million in 2006 and again in 2007.
Q. Can we expect the Space Infrared Telescope Facility to return ground-breaking discoveries like Hubble?
A. The Space Infrared Telescope Facility’s results will be front-page news. For example, when an optical telescope like Hubble observes solar systems in formation, all it sees is a blob, a dust cloud. The infrared telescope will be able to look inside and see what’s going on. I’m expecting gorgeous images — as gorgeous as those we expect from Hubble.
Q. What is the long-term budget outlook for NASA’s Astronomy and Astrophysics Division?
A. The five- to 10-year outlook is very good, but it is something we will have to continue to earn every day. The portfolio has grown because we manage our programs very aggressively. We watch for cost increases, mission creep and if either gets out of control we either cancel missions or don’t allow them to proceed into development. We also work very closely with the science community to prioritize our missions. It’s a very powerful combination. We can only continue to do space science as long as there is a real scientific return. The moment we lose that, we’re done.
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