Implementing specific recommendations from the Astro2010 decadal survey, released on 13 August, can be a bureaucratic nightmare. Just ask the 17-member NASA Advisory Council astrophysics subcommittee, which met 16 September to discuss the execution of the survey’s top large-scale space-based priority: a 1.5 m telescope named WFIRST that would investigate the still-mysterious force called dark energy.
The mission is not imminent: In fact the panel spent much of its time dealing with the instrument that has absorbed the lion’s share of resources for space astrophysics during the past decade—the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
“Flagships follow flagships,” said Jon Morse, director of NASA’s astrophysics division. If WFIRST wants to get off the ground, it had to get in line behind JWST, which is currently set to launch in 2014, he said. This puts a WFIRST launch date at 2020 or later.
But Morse proposed a way for the U.S. astrophysical community to potentially get much-needed dark energy data sooner. NASA would increases its stake in the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid mission, a space-based telescope with many of the same scientific goals as WFIRST, set to launch in 2017 or 2018.
Earlier this year, NASA began exploring the option of underwriting 20% of Euclid in exchange for access to the European telescope’s data. At todays meeting, Morse proposed increasing that commitment to one third of Euclids total mission cost—providing ESA buys into an equivalent share of WFIRST.
The suggestion met with mixed reactions. Was there a reason for NASA to support two projects with apparently similar objectives, several panel members wanted to know?
“Could you highlight the scientific differences between these two missions?” asked Shaul Hanany, an astrophysicist at the University of Minnesota. He echoed other panelists’ suggestion that the best course of action might be to combine the telescopes into a joint mission they jokingly referred to as EuFIRST.
Morse said that the ESA had already rejected this and had instead offered that Euclid could fill in gaps in data obtained with JWST and WFIRST. The advisory subcommittee was not entirely convinced.
Panel-member, Sara (Sally) Heap, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said the whole notion of partnering with Euclid felt unnecessary. She questioned the benefits to US scientists of two overlapping missions instead of doing what the decadal survey recommended; build WFIRST and fly it.
“I personally think let’s just do that and do it whole-heartedly, putting in every cent we can,” she said.
Image: NASA-GSFC