The team behind the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been awarded the Simon Ramo Medal by the IEEE for extraordinary achievements in systems engineering. The JWST, a collaborative effort of NASA, ESA, and CSA, launched on December 25, 2021, after decades of development and challenges, including budget overruns. Key team members, Mike Menzel, Bill Ochs, and Scott Willoughby, discussed the extensive systems engineering process that involved iterative design and rigorous analysis to meet the mission goals of observing infrared light from distant space, a task that had never been attempted before.
It's classic systems engineering iterations. You take a stab at it, you put the design on a piece of paper, and then you analyze it.
The purpose of the mission was clearly understood and was defined by scientists ... you don't catch infrared light unless you put a telescope really far, far away from Earth, get it really cold and put a really big optic on it.
The problem that we have is that James Webb was the first and only of its kind.
When you talk about the challenges of estimating what it's going to take, it starts by aligning on the purpose, right? You know, what is this mission, and is it worth it?
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