The Balloon Experimental Twin Telescope for Infrared Interferometry (BETTII): First Flight

The Balloon Experimental Twin Telescope for Infrared Interferometry (BETTII) is an 8-meter far-infrared (30-100 m) double-Fourier Michelson interferometer designed to fly on a high altitude scientific balloon. The project began in 2011, and the payload was declared ready for flight in September 2016. Due to bad weather, the first flight was postponed until June 2017; BETTII was successfully launched on June 8, 2017 for an engineering flight. Over the course of the one night flight, BETTII acquired a large amount of technical data that we are using to characterize the payload. Unfortunately, the flight ended with an anomaly that resulted in destruction of the payload. In this paper, we will discuss the path to BETTII flight, the results of the first flight, and some of the plans for the future

Creativity in Agile Systems Development: A Literature Review

Proponents of agile methods claim that enabling, fostering and driving creativity is the key motivation that differentiates agile methods from their more traditional, beauraucratic counterparts. However, there is very little rigorous research to support this claim. Like most of their predecessors, the development and promotion of these methods has been almost entirely driven by practitioners and consultants, with little objective validation from the research community. This lack of validation is particularly relevant for SMEs, given that many of their project teams typify the environment to which agile methods are most suited i.e. small, co-located teams with diverse, blended skills in unstructured, sometimes even chaotic surroundings. This paper uses creativity theory as a lens to review the current agile method literature to understand exactly how much we know about the extent to which creativity actually occurs in these agile environments. The study reveals many gaps and conflict of opinion in the body of knowledge in its current state and identifies many avenues for further research