Building a bridge between engineering and science with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope project

“The other day I was standing outside of a huge thermal-vacuum chamber and realized that I really enjoy learning and understanding complex systems,” notes Jeremy Perkins, an astrophysicist working on NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Roman). “I want to know how things work. Astrophysics lets me do that in two ways: I get to be part of teams that build very complex telescopes on the ground and in space, and I get to use them to understand the complex systems in the Universe. They are two sides of the same coin. Once something clicks in my head and I get that, ‘Oh, now I understand’ moment — that’s what drives me.  It’s the same whether it’s a mechanical isolation system or the emission mechanisms of active galactic nuclei.”

What are some of your responsibilities as the Observatory Integration and Test Scientist (I&T) for the Roman?
As the Observatory I&T Scientist I am the representative for science as Roman is being built and tested. This involves viewing the observatory as a whole and not just as the sum of subsystems. When you’re designing a flagship mission like Roman, you do your best to make sure the requirements are well defined. But even then, you can’t always foresee every possible thing that might happen during I&T. It’s my job to make sure that when there are questions or decisions that impact science, I speak as to how they will ultimately impact the performance of the observatory on orbit. In other words, I’m the bridge between engineering and the science community for the Roman project during I&T. 

The Roman is an infrared telescope. How does it differ from other space-based infrared missions?
Roman is designed from the ground up to do survey observations. To really answer the questions about the Universe that we want to answer, we need to be able to view a large part of the sky and make observations of thousands of supernovae, tens of thousands of planets, and hundreds of millions of galaxies. To do this, we have a very wide field of view due to our optical system and focal plane. We are out at L2 so we have a stable observing environment, and our observatory is very stable so that we can slew (get oriented) and settle quickly.  In addition to that, our ground system is designed to handle the very large amount of data that will flow from the Universe, off of our optics, through our detectors, on through the spacecraft, and down to earth. 

Scheduled to launch in 2026, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (“Roman”), NASA’s next astrophysics flagship observatory, will conduct several wide field and time domain surveys, as well as conduct an exoplanet census. Credit: NASA/GSFC/SVS

What will we learn about the Universe from the Roman mission?
This is what excites me most. There are three things:

1. Our Universe is expanding, and that expansion is accelerating. We want to understand how dark energy drives this expansion. 
2. Our universe is structured. We want to understand how dark matter and dark energy mold this structure. 
3. Our galaxy is filled with planets. We want to measure the distribution of planets to understand the evolution of planets in general. 
   
   

What do you see as the most important aspect of your work at this time?
I&T is an incredibly busy time.  Right now, we have deliveries coming into Goddard weekly — instruments, structures, telescopes, etc., — and every one of these subsystems has associated challenges, reviews, documentation, and requirements. I need to keep on top of this so I can have insight into how the final build of each of these subsystems will impact the final performance of the observatory on orbit. 

Additionally, we are now working on the Science Commissioning plan which will define the first 90 days of on-orbit activities and make sure that we are ready to execute our surveys on day 91. This is when we’ll know how the mission is really going to behave. 

What is most exciting or surprising about your work? What are some of the challenges?
Before I started working on a flagship, I thought that I&T would be highly structured and organized.  It is that — there are requirements, plans, schedules, and procedures that dictate how we do things and ensure that we’re building everything correctly. But what surprised me was how flexible we have to be during I&T, to changes, problems, and solutions. Things change day-to-day and we have to be ready to respond to that. 

What do you want attendees to learn from your talk at SPIE Optics + Photonics?
I want everyone to get excited about the science that Roman will do. Every day I come to work and see the individual subsystems of Roman being integrated into the observatory. In just a few short years, Roman will be on the launch pad, and soon after that will be sending data back to the ground.