ROCKY MOUNTAIN SECTION OPTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
                              &
           IEEE LASERS AND ELECTROOPTICS SOCIETY


                     February Meeting

Date:  Thursday, 21 Feb. 2002
Time:  7:00 PM refreshments, 7:30 PM talk
Place: CU's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
       1234 Innovation Dr., Boulder, CO
       Main Auditorium (Rm 295)


Title: The Next Generation Space Telescope

       Dr. Dennis Ebbets
       Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp
       PO Box 1062  Boulder CO 80306
       (303) 939-5964
       debbets@ball.com


Abstract:

The Hubble Space Telescope has been the premier instrument of 
NASA's space astronomy program during the 1990s, and will 
continue to be for most of the next decade. Observations that 
have been made at the limits of Hubble's capabilities have 
motivated plans for an even more powerful follow-on mission, 
currently known as the Next Generation Space Telescope. NGST 
will be an international collaboration between NASA, the 
Canadian Space Agency, and the European Space Agency. It is 
envisioned to be a 6-m class reflector, optimized for 
infrared imaging and spectroscopy, in orbit around the Sun at 
the L2 Lagrangian point. Ball Aerospace has played a key role 
in the Hubble program for nearly twenty five years, and is 
currently teamed with TRW to develop a design for NGST.  This 
talk will discuss the scientific goals for NGST, and how 
those objectives have led to the specification of its 
requirements, choices of design features, and evaluation of 
its expected performance. 


Biography:

Dennis Ebbets is a Systems Engineer at Ball Aerospace Systems 
Division in Boulder, Colorado. Since joining Ball in 1985 he 
has worked primarily on science instruments for NASA's Hubble 
Space Telescope, and on design studies for other space 
science missions, including the Next Generation Space 
Telescope. He is a member of the Investigation Definition 
Team for two instruments aboard Hubble, the Goddard High 
Resolution Spectrograph and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. 
Dr. Ebbets holds an undergraduate degree in physics from West 
Virginia Wesleyan College and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from 
the University of Colorado. He is active in several 
professional societies, including the American Astronomical 
Society, and the Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation 
Engineers. Dennis enjoys the opportunities to communicate the 
scientific results of NASA programs to the public, and is a 
frequent speaker at schools, service clubs, and professional 
organizations. He resides in Boulder with his wife and three 
children.