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NASA’s IXPE Awarded Prestigious Prize in High-energy Astronomy
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By NASA
Begoña Vila, an instrument systems engineer for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, has been selected to receive the 2024 Galician Excellence Title in the Sciences and Medicine Category for her career and work on Webb.
Dr. Begoña Vila, Instrument Systems Engineer, James Webb Space Telescope This award comes from the Spanish Association of Galician Entrepreneurs of Catalonia (AEGA-CAT), a civic and social organization of entrepreneurs who seek to extend their vocation outside the country of Spain. The award honors individuals for their “profound human quality, their professional achievements, and their contribution to the development of Galicia and its respect for the culture and traditions of their land.” The award was presented to Vila July 5 at the 19th Gala Dinner of AEGA-CAT in Barcelona, Spain.
“I feel very honored to receive this title,” Vila said. “It is a wonderful surprise and special to me, working abroad, to be remembered and recognized in my home country. I grew up in Galicia, where a lot of my family lives, and it is always a pleasure to go back there.”
Vila is also an instrument systems engineer for NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in addition to her role with the Webb mission. In particular, she is the systems lead for two of the instruments on Webb, one of which is the Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) responsible for the pointing and stability of the observatory.
She led the final cryogenic test at Goddard for all the science instruments and supported the testing at NASA’s Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston; Northrop Grumman Space Systems in southern California; at the launch site, Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana; and during the commissioning period at the Mission Control Center at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. Vila continues her support for Webb operations and actively engages in Spanish and English media interviews and outreach activities for the Webb program, including Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) events.
Vila’s involvement with Webb began in 2006 when she was working with COM DEV International, the Canadian company that developed and tested the FGS and Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) under CSA (Canadian Space Agency), one of NASA’s international partners. Vila worked with the CSA team to ensure all the tests, analysis, and requirements verifications were complete and the instruments were ready for delivery to NASA in 2012.
She then moved to work at Goddard, as systems lead for FGS and NIRISS but also expanding her role to test director for the final cryogenic test of all the Webb’s instruments, and to deputy operations lead for the science instruments.
The Galician Excellence Titles, established by the association in 2005, recognize the personal and professional career of those people who contribute to the economic development and knowledge of Galicia outside its borders. Other categories of this award include Arts, Business, Solidarity Action, Sports, Communication & New Entrepreneurs.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
For more information about NASA’s Webb telescope visit: www.nasa.gov/webb
Rob Gutro
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
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By NASA
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Marcia Rieke, a scientist who worked on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope, has received the Gruber Foundation’s 2024 Cosmology Prize. Rieke will receive the award and gold laureate pin at a ceremony August 8, 2024, at the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Cape Town, South Africa.
Marcia Rieke is Regents’ Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona and was the principal investigator for the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on the Webb telescope.University of Arizona Rieke was awarded the prize “for her pioneering work on astronomical instrumentation to reveal the breadth and details of the infrared universe. Her contributions to flagship space missions have opened new avenues for understanding the history and mechanisms of star and galaxy formation. She enabled the development and delivery of premier instruments providing groundbreaking sensitivity to near-infrared wavelengths to both the Webb and the Hubble telescopes. Through these substantive contributions along with earlier work, Marcia Rieke has had a lasting impact on our understanding of the universe,” according to the Gruber Foundation’s announcement.
The Cosmology Prize honors a leading cosmologist, astronomer, astrophysicist, or scientific philosopher for theoretical, analytical, conceptual, or observational discoveries leading to fundamental advances in our understanding of the universe. Since 2001, the Cosmology Prize has been cosponsored by the International Astronomical Union. Presented annually, the Cosmology Prize acknowledges and encourages further exploration in a field that shapes the way we perceive and comprehend our universe.
Rieke is Regents’ Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona and was the principal investigator for the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on the Webb telescope.
As principal investigator for the NIRCam, Rieke was responsible for ensuring that the instrument was built and delivered on time and on budget. She worked with the engineers at Lockheed Martin who built NIRCam and helped them decipher and meet the instruments’ requirements.
“As principal investigator of the James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam instrument, Dr. Rieke’s vision, dedication, and leadership were inspirational to the entire team and a key contribution to the success of the Webb telescope,” said Lee Feinberg, Webb telescope manager and optics lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Rieke’s research interests include infrared observations of the center of the Milky Way and of other galactic nuclei. She has served as the deputy principal investigator on the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer for the Hubble Space Telescope (NICMOS), and the outreach coordinator for NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope.
“As a leading scientist on a premiere Hubble Space Telescope science camera, NICMOS, Dr. Rieke’s expertise enabled ground-breaking discoveries on everything from star formation to distant galaxies,” said Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, Hubble Space Telescope senior project scientist at NASA Goddard. “Subsequent cameras on Hubble, and infrared space telescopes like Spitzer and Webb, have built upon Dr. Rieke’s pioneering work.”
“Dr. Rieke has also poured herself into wide international scientific leadership, leading countless scientific panels that envision and shape the best instruments for future powerful astronomical discovery,” Wiseman said.
“There’s a story beginning to emerge,” Rieke said about the science Webb has returned in the first two years of its mission. “But we still need some more pieces to the story.” For the duration of Webb’s lifetime, many of those pieces will emerge from the instrument that Rieke led.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
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Rob Gutro
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
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Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the…
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Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
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What are Infrared Waves? Infrared waves, or infrared light, are part of the electromagnetic spectrum. People encounter Infrared waves every…
The Electromagnetic Spectrum Video Series & Companion Book
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By NASA
On 3/7/24, Astrophysical Journal published online “X-ray Polarimetry of the Dipping Accreting Neutron Star 4U 1624–49” by M. Lynne Saade (Astrophysics Branch) et al. This is the 51st discovery paper published by the IXPE Science Team. The first author, Lynnie Saade, is a new postdoc working on IXPE and this is her first IXPE paper, which was submitted only a few months after arriving at MSFC.
Illustration of the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry ExplorerView the full article
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By European Space Agency
Spacemanic, a Slovak and Czech startup company, won this year’s Prix Bulles Cardin award of €20 000 on 17 May for its ocean WaterCube.
This device, which is based on space hardware, has sensors which measure pollution levels in sea water allowing the identification of pollution hotspots. With this data, action can be taken to safeguard habitats and species critical for the long-term sustainability of marine ecosystems and fisheries.
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By NASA
1 min read
IXPE Operations Update
On March 23, NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) stopped transmitting valid telemetry data. The only previous interruption of IXPE science observations was due to a similar issue in June of 2023.
On March 26, using procedures developed following that previous interruption, the team initiated a spacecraft avionics reset to address the issue, which put IXPE into a planned safe mode. The team has confirmed that IXPE is once again transmitting valid telemetry data and is now working to resume science operations, in as rapid and safe a manner as possible. The spacecraft is in good health.
Launched in 2021, IXPE is a space observatory built to discover the secrets of some of the most extreme cosmic objects – the remnants of supernova explosions, neutron stars, powerful particle streams ejected by feeding black holes, and more. The observatory is NASA’s first mission to study the polarization of X-rays from many different types of celestial objects. Follow the IXPE blog for further updates.
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