"James Webb Space Telescope: The First Light Machine"

Seminar by

Dr. H. Philip Stahl
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, AL 35812
Abstract: Scheduled to begin its 10 year mission no sooner than 2013, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will search for the first luminous objects of the Universe to help answer fundamental questions about how the Universe came to look like it does today. At 6.5 meters in diameter, JWST will be the world’s largest space telescope. This talk will review science objectives for JWST and how they are driving the JWST architecture, e.g. aperture, wavelength range and operating temperature. Additionally, the talk will include an overview of the JWST primary mirror technology development.

BIOGRAPHY: Dr. H. Philip Stahl is a Senior Optical Physicist at NASA MSFC where he is the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Optical Components Technical Lead. Prior to joining NASA, Dr. Stahl was a Senior Optical Engineer at Raytheon Danbury (formerly Hughes Danbury Optical Systems, now Goodrich Aerospace) where he was lead optical engineer on the Space Based Laser Program. As President of Stahl Optical Systems Inc. he supported several NASA microgravity experiments. Also, he was an Assistant Professor of Physics and Applied Optics at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, the Optical Products Manager at Breault Research Organization (BRO), and a Senior Optical Systems Engineer at BRO. Prior to that, he worked at Perkin-Elmer, Hughes Aircraft, and Wright-Patterson AFB. Finally, he was a Faculty Fellow at NASA Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center.

Dr. Stahl is a leading authority in optical metrology, optical engineering, and phase-measuring interferometry. Many of the world's largest telescopes have been fabricated with the aid of high-speed and infrared phase-measuring Interferometers developed by him, including the Keck, VLT and Gemini telescopes. He is a Fellow of SPIE, an SPIE Director, an International Commission for Optics (ICO) Vice President and a member of OSA. He earned his PhD in Optical Science at the University of Arizona Optical Sciences Center in 1985.