How the James Webb Space Telescope was designed - with Mark Clampin

NASA’s Astrophysics Division Director Mark Clampin shares his experiences designing the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and what the future of astrophysics has in store.

This lecture was recorded at the Ri on the 19 October 2024.

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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has now been capturing glimpses of our Universe for three and a half years. But as the largest telescope in space, the design and development of JWST was no small feat.

Join Astrophysics Division Director at NASA Mark Clampin as he discusses his own experiences in the design of the JWST, and how these design elements led to some of the ground-breaking science results it has yielded from observations of the early universe, the formation and evolution of stars, and the study of exoplanet atmospheres.

Looking to the future, Mark gives us a glimpse into two of NASA’s upcoming projects observing our universe. NASA’s next astrophysics flagship, the Roman Space Telescope, will study the nature of dark energy and the Habitable Worlds Observatory, a new mission concept that will propel forwards the search for life in the universe, while building on the technical achievements of the Roman and Webb telescopes.
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Mark Clampin is the Astrophysics Division Director in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. He previously served as the Director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate (SED) at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) where he led the Astrophysics, Solar System, Heliophysics, Earth Science Divisions, and the high performance computing office. During his tenure at GSFC he was the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Observatory Project Scientist developing scientific requirements and overseeing their implementation. His research interests focus on studying the formation and evolution of planetary systems and astronomical instrumentation. He has designed space and ground-based telescope instruments including adaptive optics systems, coronagraphs and detectors. He is the recipient of the Meritorious Presidential Rank Award, NASA’s Exceptional Achievement, and Scientific Achievement Medals. He’s also a Fellow of SPIE and the Royal Astronomical Society. Until recently he was the Chief Editor of SPIE peer-reviewed Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments and Systems, a position he held from the creation of the Journal.

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00:00 Intro to the JWST and Mark
05:11 Origins in the Hubble Telescope
11:59 The design process for the JWST
16:36 The mirrors on the JWST
24:50 Testing, moving and logistics
32:18 What happened in the six months after launch?
37:35 The incredible image quality from JWST
43:16 How the JWST is changing science
51:16 What’s next for the JWST?

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[christopherwhittaker]

Outstanding. And very timely. Sometimes I despair of us as the human race but it’s talks like this that remind me of what incredible things we are capable of. Everyone involved in the JWST is a hero / heroine.
Thank you for sharing this magnificent talk.

[Frohicky]

Good talk. No fake enthusiasm. No glitz without substance.

[JenniferNg]

Awesome video! I'm doing my PhD research on liquid mirrors for space telescopes. This JWST video reminds me why I enjoy astronomy and engineering so much!

[RFC]

12:34 - The reason why phones don't like being in the fridge is battery chemistry. Most electronics actually tend to work better when cold. Of course, fridges don't go down to 40 K.

[andycordy]

Webb will prove to be an epoch making instrument for astronomy but also for technical proficiency and precision engineering. Having watched NASA videos on the development, I was glued to the TV at the launch, the only member of the family aware of the hundreds of tiny components that each had to function correctly or $ 9 Billion dollars and countless hours of design, development, manufacture and testing would be rendered space debris. A pinnacle of human endeavour and a tremendous example of collaborative effort.

[idlehands]

A really engaging speaker. I love astronomy but have the attention span of a fish so it's not often I'd sit through an hour.
Listening to the engineering challenges - if I'd been in charge of the project it would have been lucky to be able to see the moon.

[FrankBarnwell-ximy]

I remember the Hubble deep field. Sky and Telescope magazine had a great issue on it. And the Hubble telescope repair. Awesome

[Thisandthat]

Webb was so ambitious, it grew into technology just being able to do it. That's why it took so long. Maybe waiting for technology to catch up and an intermediate telescope would have been wiser.
But it worked out eventually, so all is well. But going through the setup process as someone who knew in detail, how complicated it was, must have been nerve wrecking.

[thefxbip]

22:38 ''just the horror of being launched'' as he looks with horror at his tooth being launched out of his mouth. Beautiful. Just Beautiful.

[sailingonasummerbreeze]

Nice presentation - this is an amazing piece of engineering! Thank you Director Clampin for your efforts!

[SwiftPushkar]

What a speech, just fascinating.But i would like to point out one point that it's ESA and Arian rocket which launched the JWST in accurate orbit that we can talke it's full advantage without errors, so big thanks to ESA.

[scottantonille]

Hey Mark, maybe show some love for ISIM and the instruments? A lot of JWST press focuses only on the OTE, but the instruments are pretty amazing in their design, fabrication, assembly, alignment, and testing— and it all worked flawlessly. Maybe not as glamorous as the OTE, but just as amazing.

[henrybrandt]

Thank you! What a marvelous lecture.

[DavidChipman]

Why are the horizontal lines flickering?

[ChandrasegaranNarasimhan]

What I learnt was mirrors have to be temperature controlled for perfect imaging. Which is interesting. Btw clever experiment by carl sagan.

[jimmurphy]

I live less than 50 miles from the Perkin Elmer facility that produced the Hubble mirror. It was a very big deal at the time.

[desdoan]

Awesome, , thanks for making these educational vids

[Sci-Fi-Mike]

Fanstastic talk, Mark! Will the Habitable Worlds Observatory focus on the spectra in infrared or other electromagnetic spectra?

[e.kevinsteinhauser]

Extraordinary beyond all expectations, superior and beyond any and all manned space explorations.

[zrebbesh]

If we launched three JWST-class space telescopes into independent orbits between Earth and Mars (ie, NOT stuck to our L2 point) they'd be worth WAY more than triple the cost, because then we could do AU-plus scale interferometry.