Most people have heard that the JWST project has undergone major reviews this summer, following events that put its cost more than $1B over budget. While significant savings have been identified, the telescope has emerged without major changes, and NASA has moved to keep the project going, with a launch delay to 2013. In addition to money, the project has had to save mass, and the Canadian Tunable Narrow-band filter camera (TFI) was targeted for deletion for its mass. Eventually, a compromise was reached whereby we have reduced the instrument to a single channel imager (from the planned double using a beam splitter), with the undertaking to reduce the allocated mass by 80Kg. We are now proceeding with the design changes necessary with the CSA contractors, EMS Technologies. CSA recently announced this contract in a press release.
All this kept several of us quite busy this summer: Rene Doyon
and myself for the science team, CSA management, the EMS team in
investigating the design changes, and Bob Abraham, who served on
the independent science review team. Great teamwork all round, and
we hope for more measured progress in the coming year.
John Hutchings