Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Optical Telescope Assembly (OTA) is an out-of-house procurement from L3Harris currently being integrated and tested in Rochester, NY. Building upon L3Harris’s decades of success producing world-class optical systems for government and commercial customers offers NASA a proven partner and a tremendous opportunity for high performance and value. Inheriting significant portions of the telescope (including the primary and secondary mirror, composite metering structures and alignment drives) from a previous program presents the opportunity to save cost and schedule, but constrains the design space for the unique challenges of the Roman mission. This seminar will cover a brief description of the OTA and its history, some of the challenges posed by incorporating an established product line and inherited hardware into a Class A mission, and some approaches and lessons learned that may be helpful for those structuring new missions or providing technical oversight of out-of-house procurements.

Biography:

Joshua Abel has served as lead systems engineer for the Optical Telescope Assembly (OTA) element of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope since starting with NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center (Code 592) in 2019. Beginning his career in 2001 in commercial space, he has worked on various projects at GSFC and surrounding areas starting in 2005, serving as a lead thermal engineer for HST operations (Servicing Mission 4), instrument payloads for the ISS, NRL’s SoloHI instrument for ESA’s Solar Orbiter mission, as well as other projects related to satellite servicing. Josh also supported the GSFC’s New Opportunities Office as a systems engineer for an astrophysics decadal study and two small explorer proposals. He received a B.S. in interdisciplinary engineering (biomedical engineering) from Purdue University.