Metrology system for measuring mast motions on the NuSTAR mission

A metrology system designed and built for the NuSTAR mission is described. The NuSTAR mission is an orbiting X-ray telescope with a 10 meter focal length. The system consists of two laser pointers mounted rigidly together with a star tracker and the X-ray optics. The focused laser beams illuminates two metrology detectors mounted rigidly with the X-ray detectors. The detectors and optics/lasers are separated by a ∼10 meter deployable (and somewhat flexible) carbon fiber mast. Details about the implementation of the metrology system is discussed in this paper

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Pathways to Wellbeing: Public Library Service in Rural Communities

To answer the question “If public libraries are a component of social wellbeing in rural communities, how are they successful?” we conducted, transcribed, coded, and analyzed 114 group and individual interviews with 202 people at eight field research sites in isolated rural communities distributed throughout the United States. Motivating this study is a gap in understanding the library service mechanisms involved at the community level which will yield beneficial social wellbeing outcomes. Through iterative phenomenological analysis, we established how rural residents defined social wellbeing for themselves and how they describe the library’s role in that context. We found that rural residents forego access to standard amenities for access to deep social connections, natural resources, and community cultures of freedom and mutual support. We found long term locally made structural, social, and cultural norms, which we call pathways, through which libraries support wellbeing

Pathways to Wellbeing: Public Library Service in Rural Communities

To answer the question ”If public libraries are a component of social wellbeing in rural communities, how are they successful?” we conducted, transcribed, coded, and analyzed interviews at eight field research sites in isolated rural communities distributed throughout the United States. If positive impacts on wellbeing are happening—as many assume—and if success is to be measured by those positive impacts—as many wish it could—it follows that a deeper investigation into the mechanisms involved will yield beneficial approaches that can be intentionally designed and implemented. Through this deeper investigation, we established how rural residents defined social wellbeing for themselves and how they describe the library’s role in that context. We found that rural residents forego access to standard amenities for access to deep social connections, natural resources, and community cultures of freedom and mutual support. We found long term multi-step supports, which we call pathways, through which libraries support wellbeing