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There are reports of a leak from government that the Nancy Grace Roman scope could get axed due to budget cuts. I just happened to have finished reading John Mather's, "The Very First Light", and followed their struggle to... make it to the top.
Here's sort of a chronological bullet list of the ups and downs...
1974 fall – Some 121 proposals poured into NASA HQ.
The team (future COBE) offered their project (52 pages).
Their proposal was 52 pages. Their estimated was only off by a factor of about 30. P111
IRAS was a higher priority, but after time and support, their project [COBE] was 2nd for consideration.
They were told to keep cost below $30M
IRAS was exceeding their budget and approaching $100M, which might jeopardize their mission.
1976 – Confirmation of the dipole by Princeton high-altitude balloon team by Dave Wilkinson. Several other groups reconfirmed this, including Muller and Smoot in 1977 (U2 flight).
1979 – Guth introduced Inflation theory.
1981 Oct -- James Beggs gave Nancy a letter authorizing COBE, and it would be launched by a shuttle on the west coast. [This launch would save $10M from an east coast Delta launch.] Mather made 32 design changes to address the likely vibration problems, which were unknowns.
They learned the Soviet’s Relikt mission (for anisotropy) could go up as early as 1983, but the team learned they were looking at 8 mm wavelengths, so this was deemed to be an unsuccessful attempt.
1982 summer – Hawking, Guth and others attended a seminar at Nuffield College, Oxford. It was determined that the laws of quantum mechanics must have governed in that infinitesimally minuscule space. [But where were the anisotropies.] Only from space could a very sensitive instrument perform adequately.
1983 Jan 25 – IRAS launched with a Delta. The cryo technology helped support their plans for COBE.
1986 Jan 28 – Challenger explosion.
“Within 3 moths a huge Titan 34D loaded with a billion-dollar military satellite exploded” destroying the launch pad. P187
NASA money went into restoration of the Shuttle program. There was also a hiring freeze at NASA.
They (COBE) expected another year delay, adding another $6M to keep the doors open.
They considered the French Ariane rocket, but at a cost of $80M for the launch.
Dennis presented to NASA the idea of reducing the size of COBE to fit in a small Delta. [I think I read that there was only one Delta rocket remaining.] . By now, COBE was 10,500 lbs., and it had to be cut to about half this weight. The hydrazine propulsion system was jettisoned along with structural components required for a shuttle launch, cutting 4000 lbs.
Sam Keller, NASA deputy assoc. adm., stating, “We want to get a high-profile science satellite up as quickly as possible to help restore the public/s faith in NASA.”
“Congress had been told that NASA’s No. 1 priority was to fly by May 1989 or else.”
But Frank McDonald, NASA’s chief scientist, spoke up in COBE’s defense, stating that the emphasis should be on a successful mission rather than a fast one: ‘No one ever won a medal for an on-time failure.’”
1987 – Discovery of the Great Wall and, later, the Great Attractor, stunning theorists. “We’re starting to find that we just don’t have enough time to get the universe from an early state to the one that we’re seeing now.” Per Edwin Turner (Princeton).
By a quirk of timing, the HST was in flight from CA to FL while COBE was in the air flying from CA to Fl.
1989 Nov 18, 6:47 am – COBE launched. After about a minute, six solid fuel rockets were ejected at an altitude of more than 10 miles. Many in the crowd gasped, not realizing what was happening.
Within an hour it reached it “almost perfectly north-south circular orbit with an altitude ranging from 899.3 km to 900.5 km.
COBE had cost $160 million, not counting the rocket. The total cost was close to $400 million.
Four days after the launch, 5:30 am, report came to author of a gyro failure of the six total. The backup system worked to save things.
After 24 hour service to get everything working properly but still not calibrated, Ed Cheng and Rich Isaacman got bored watching their screens (with no calibrated data). Cheng suggested they try using their ground test calibrations as a way to get an idea what data they might get after the space calibrations.
‘”Holy s**t,’ Ed and Rich said in unison as the screen displayed an absolutely perfect black body curve.”
1990 Jan 13 – Black body results presented at the AAS meeting. [Mather received a standing ovation.]
1992 April, APS meeting they announced their anisotropy results. COBE detected temperature variations by only about 30 millionths K.
Here's sort of a chronological bullet list of the ups and downs...
1974 fall – Some 121 proposals poured into NASA HQ.
The team (future COBE) offered their project (52 pages).
Their proposal was 52 pages. Their estimated was only off by a factor of about 30. P111
IRAS was a higher priority, but after time and support, their project [COBE] was 2nd for consideration.
They were told to keep cost below $30M
IRAS was exceeding their budget and approaching $100M, which might jeopardize their mission.
1976 – Confirmation of the dipole by Princeton high-altitude balloon team by Dave Wilkinson. Several other groups reconfirmed this, including Muller and Smoot in 1977 (U2 flight).
1979 – Guth introduced Inflation theory.
1981 Oct -- James Beggs gave Nancy a letter authorizing COBE, and it would be launched by a shuttle on the west coast. [This launch would save $10M from an east coast Delta launch.] Mather made 32 design changes to address the likely vibration problems, which were unknowns.
They learned the Soviet’s Relikt mission (for anisotropy) could go up as early as 1983, but the team learned they were looking at 8 mm wavelengths, so this was deemed to be an unsuccessful attempt.
1982 summer – Hawking, Guth and others attended a seminar at Nuffield College, Oxford. It was determined that the laws of quantum mechanics must have governed in that infinitesimally minuscule space. [But where were the anisotropies.] Only from space could a very sensitive instrument perform adequately.
1983 Jan 25 – IRAS launched with a Delta. The cryo technology helped support their plans for COBE.
1986 Jan 28 – Challenger explosion.
“Within 3 moths a huge Titan 34D loaded with a billion-dollar military satellite exploded” destroying the launch pad. P187
NASA money went into restoration of the Shuttle program. There was also a hiring freeze at NASA.
They (COBE) expected another year delay, adding another $6M to keep the doors open.
They considered the French Ariane rocket, but at a cost of $80M for the launch.
Dennis presented to NASA the idea of reducing the size of COBE to fit in a small Delta. [I think I read that there was only one Delta rocket remaining.] . By now, COBE was 10,500 lbs., and it had to be cut to about half this weight. The hydrazine propulsion system was jettisoned along with structural components required for a shuttle launch, cutting 4000 lbs.
Sam Keller, NASA deputy assoc. adm., stating, “We want to get a high-profile science satellite up as quickly as possible to help restore the public/s faith in NASA.”
“Congress had been told that NASA’s No. 1 priority was to fly by May 1989 or else.”
But Frank McDonald, NASA’s chief scientist, spoke up in COBE’s defense, stating that the emphasis should be on a successful mission rather than a fast one: ‘No one ever won a medal for an on-time failure.’”
1987 – Discovery of the Great Wall and, later, the Great Attractor, stunning theorists. “We’re starting to find that we just don’t have enough time to get the universe from an early state to the one that we’re seeing now.” Per Edwin Turner (Princeton).
By a quirk of timing, the HST was in flight from CA to FL while COBE was in the air flying from CA to Fl.
1989 Nov 18, 6:47 am – COBE launched. After about a minute, six solid fuel rockets were ejected at an altitude of more than 10 miles. Many in the crowd gasped, not realizing what was happening.
Within an hour it reached it “almost perfectly north-south circular orbit with an altitude ranging from 899.3 km to 900.5 km.
COBE had cost $160 million, not counting the rocket. The total cost was close to $400 million.
Four days after the launch, 5:30 am, report came to author of a gyro failure of the six total. The backup system worked to save things.
After 24 hour service to get everything working properly but still not calibrated, Ed Cheng and Rich Isaacman got bored watching their screens (with no calibrated data). Cheng suggested they try using their ground test calibrations as a way to get an idea what data they might get after the space calibrations.
‘”Holy s**t,’ Ed and Rich said in unison as the screen displayed an absolutely perfect black body curve.”
1990 Jan 13 – Black body results presented at the AAS meeting. [Mather received a standing ovation.]
1992 April, APS meeting they announced their anisotropy results. COBE detected temperature variations by only about 30 millionths K.
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