3 - So we've lost the mission? The Big Bang and the Cosmic Background Explorer

Summary

John Mather is a Senior Astrophysicist in the Infrared Astrophysics Branch at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. His research centers on infrared astronomy and cosmology. He is the recipient of many awards, including the National Air and Space Museum Trophy, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Space Science Award, the Aviation Week and Space Technology laurels, the Heineman Prize of the American Astronomical Society, the John Scott Award from the city of Philadelphia, the Rumford Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics from the Franklin Institute. In his spare time, John likes to read, listen to music, travel, and go to the ballet with his wife, Jane, a ballet teacher. John is presently working on several advanced space astronomy mission concepts, including the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. Here he tells us of how he came to be one of the key players in NASA's COBE (pronounced, CO-BEE) mission to explore the Big Bang.

Two days after the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite was launched, my wife heard me answer a 4:00am phone call with the words “So we've lost the mission?”. COBE had lost a gyro and we didn't know how well we would recover. Needless to say I got up, only an hour after getting home, to see what could be done.