NASA and the James Webb Space Telescope industry team, led by Northrop Grumman Corporation, have won the prestigious National Aeronautic Association (NAA) Robert J. Collier Trophy for revolutionizing the field of astrophysics thanks to the team’s pioneering design and the telescope’s exceptional performance.
The Collier Trophy is awarded annually for the greatest achievement in aerospace in America. The award will be presented at the NAA Gala in Washington, D.C., on June 15.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson says “The James Webb Space Telescope is nothing short of a scientific feat and a shining example of what NASA can achieve when we push the boundaries of space exploration, all thanks to the hard work and dedication of the exceptional Webb team. Congratulations on this well-deserved honor!”
Lee Feinberg, manager of the Webb Telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space says “This award is for the 20,000 people who have poured their hearts and souls into every detail for more than 20 years to make Webb an incredible success, and this is just the beginning”.
Collier Trophy
The world’s first space telescope NASA
The NAA has awarded the Robert J. Collier Trophy to the team behind NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, recognizing the telescope’s place in aviation history as it approaches its one-year anniversary of operation later this year. Webb is the world’s first space telescope.
Established more than a century ago, the award marked major achievements in the timeline of flight, including Orville Wright in 1913 for developing the automatic stabilizer; Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager for his 1947 flight of the X-1 rocket plane that broke the sound barrier; NASA’s Apollo 8, 11, and 15 crews for their lunar missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s; and the NASA Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.
Northrop Grumman led the design, build and overall integration of the system and prepared the observatory for launch. Other industry partners of the Webb team include Ball Aerospace, L3Harris, NeXolve and Raytheon.
The Collier Trophy honors the Webb team for activities in 2022, where within two weeks of its historic launch, Webb deployed its sun visor and mirrors during a series of complex deployments and maneuvers, the first-ever attempts of its kind in space. In order for the observatory to fulfill its ambitious scientific mission, Webb incorporates innovative design, advanced technology and pioneering engineering. Ten technological inventions were created to build the advanced telescope, including revolutionary optics, detectors etc.
The Collier Trophy adds to the list of recent honors received by the Webb NASA team, including those from Popular Science, the Project Management Institute, Bloomberg 50 Bloomberg Businessweek, the Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy, the 2023 John L. “Jack” Swigert, Jr. Award for space exploration and the highest honor in space on Fast Company’s most innovative list.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s leading observatory for space science. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look further to distant worlds around other stars, and explore the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it.
Written by : Vaishali Verma
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