The Optical Interferometry Development Laboratory
was designed and constructed to fulfill the part
of NASA’s mission to explore the universe,
to search for life, and to inspire the next generation
of explorers. Its laboratories are capable of
building the next generations of space instruments
needed to find planets beyond our solar system,
to take their pictures, and to measure the molecules
in their atmospheres for sign of life. The Laboratory
is actually five separate buildings linked together
so that a movement in any location won’t
cause vibrations to spoil delicate measurements
and experiments in any of the labs. Temperatures
are held constant, and the air is held still.
Every person involved with this project from its
designers to its builders worked as one team and
worked their hardest to make the best scientific
laboratories for developing NASA’s future
space instruments.
The first experiments to be located in this building
vary from the specialized test bed needed for
the James Webb Space Telescope, to perfecting
the technologies for the Space Interferometry
Mission. Experiments for developing advanced telescopes
and for proving techniques of formation flying
interferometers for the Terrestrial Planet Finder
Mission share a large part of this building. Other
advanced experiments and flight demonstrations
are being developed for future astronomy and physics
missions that will explore the origins of our
universe. |
