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The WISE Satellite Development: Managing the Risks and the OpportunitiesNASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) MIDEX mission is surveying the entire sky in four infrared bands from 3.4 to 22 micrometers. The WISE instrument consists of a 40 cm telescope, a solid hydrogen cryostat, a scan mirror mechanism, and four 1K x1K infrared detectors. The WISE spacecraft bus provides communication, data handling, and avionics including instrument pointing. A Delta 7920 successfully launched WISE into a Sun-synchronous polar orbit on December 14, 2009. WISE was competitively selected by NASA as a Medium cost Explorer mission (MIDEX) in 2002. MIDEX missions are led by the Principal Investigator who delegates day-to-day management to the Project Manager. Given the tight cost cap and relatively short development schedule, NASA chose to extend the development period one year with an option to cancel the mission if certain criteria were not met. To meet this and other challenges, the WISE management team had to learn to work seamlessly across institutional lines and to recognize risks and opportunities in order to develop the flight hardware within the project resources. In spite of significant technical issues, the WISE satellite was delivered on budget and on schedule. This paper describes our management approach and risk posture, technical issues, and critical decisions made.
Document ID
20150008514
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Conference Paper
External Source(s)
Authors
Duval, Valerie G.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Elwell, John D.
(Utah State Univ. Logan, UT, United States)
Howard, Joan F.
(Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. Boulder, CO, United States)
Irace, William R.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Liu, Feng-Chuan
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
May 20, 2015
Publication Date
August 1, 2010
Subject Category
Astronomy
Meeting Information
Meeting: SPIE Optics and Photonics Conference
Location: San Diego, CA
Country: United States
Start Date: August 1, 2010
End Date: August 5, 2010
Sponsors: International Society for Optical Engineering
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
Risk Management
Infrared
Cryogenic Mission

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