The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

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David Caldwell

Center for Astrophysics

Program Manager/Project Engineer, Central Engineering

David Caldwell

dcaldwell@cfa.harvard.edu

About

David is a mechanical engineer by training who serves as a Program Manager/Project Engineer in the CfA's Central Engineering mechanical group. After working for Raytheon Missile Systems, he joined the CfA in 1993. David has worked on the Parker Solar Probe and is currently working as Program Manager on SSAXI and Project Engineer on HiC-Flare, Helioswarm, and MUSE.

MSME, Northeastern University

Telescopes and Instruments

Hinode

The Sun is the closest star to Earth, and the single most important influence on the worlds of the Solar System in terms of the light and particles it emits. Studying the Sun, in other words, helps us understand the habitability of Earth, but also other stars elsewhere in the universe. One important solar observatory is the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Hinode spacecraft, which carries three powerful instruments to study the Sun in X-rays, visible light, and ultraviolet light. Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian engineers collaborated in the development of the X-ray Telescope for the spacecraft. Hinode has been observing the Sun continuously since its launch in 2006, providing important day-by-day information about our host star’s activity.

Visit the Hinode/XRT Website

Chandra

The Chandra X-ray Observatory is NASA’s flagship X-ray observatory, providing essential data on everything from the environment surrounding newborn stars to the emissions from hot plasma inside galaxy clusters. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), as part of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, manages Chandra’s day-to-day operations, providing spacecraft control, observation planning, and data processing for astronomers. Chandra is one of NASA’s orbiting Great Observatories, along with the Hubble.

Visit the Chandra Website

MMT Observatory

The MMT Observatory is the premier visible-light and infrared telescope jointly managed by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, part of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and the University of Arizona. Located at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO) in southern Arizona, this 6.5-meter (21 foot) telescope is used to study objects across the field of astronomy, from the Solar System to distant galaxies. The MMT has provided a testbed for new telescope technologies developed by scientists and engineers at the CfA and the University of Arizona.

Visit the MMT Website

Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

The Sun is both life-giving and dangerous. Variations in the Sun’s light and wind have profound effects on Earth, while solar storms can wreak havoc on power and communications systems. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is a spacecraft dedicated to studying these potentially dangerous variations, and the magnetic fields that drive them. Engineers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian contributed to the design and construction of the four Atmospheric Imaging Array (AIA) telescopes. AIA is one of the three major experiments carried by SDO.

Visit the SDO Website

South Pole Telescope, Antarctica

The South Pole Telescope (SPT) is a submillimeter observatory in Antarctica that performs measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the dark energy driving the acceleration of the expansion of the universe. The observatory is also part of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a globe-spanning multi-telescope project that captured the first image of a black hole at the center of a nearby galaxy. The SPT project is a collaboration between the University of Chicago, the University of California at Berkeley, Case Western Reserve University, the University of Illinois, and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.

Visit the South Pole Telescope, Antarctica Website

Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE)

The Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) was a space-based solar observatory which operated from 1998 through 2010. TRACE primarily observed in ultraviolet light to map the small-scale structure of the eruptions of gas on the Sun’s surface known as coronal loops, as well as the “transition region” where the Sun’s atmosphere increases in temperature dramatically. The telescope was a joint project of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, NASA, and Lockheed Martin. The long duration of the mission enabled TRACE to be the second space-based solar observatory to monitor an entire sunspot cycle, which provided valuable information on how the Sun’s magnetic field affects its atmosphere.

Parker Solar Probe

What is driving the solar wind? Some particles in the Sun’s atmosphere gain enough speed to escape the Sun’s gravitational pull and bombard the worlds of the Solar System, but the processes behind the phenomenon are still mysterious. To solve that mystery, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe spacecraft was built to fly through the Sun’s atmosphere, performing the first up-close solar measurements in history. Scientists and engineers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian built the Solar Probe Cup (SPC) instrument for the spacecraft. SPC is part of the Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons (SWEAP) instrument suite used to sample particles directly from the Sun’s atmosphere for analysis.

Visit the Parker Solar Probe SWEAP Website

High Resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C)

Why the Sun’s corona — the wispy outermost atmosphere — is so much hotter than its surface stands as a big mystery in solar science. NASA’s High-Resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C) is an ultraviolet telescope designed to help solve the mystery, and understand the processes by which the Sun sends violent storms of particles into the Solar System. Since most of the light from the Sun’s atmosphere is blocked by air molecules on Earth, Hi-C is carried on a short-flight rocket into Earth’s upper atmosphere. Since 2012, Hi-C has flown three times, providing the highest resolution images of the corona and revealing new details in the Sun’s atmosphere. Hi-C is jointly operated by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, with contributions from other researchers around the world.

Visit the Hi-C Website

The Coronal Spectrographic Imager in the EUV (COSIE)

Space weather is a matter of concern for all of us: storms from the Sun can disrupt global communications and electrical power grids. However, we still don’t understand exactly how these storms are formed, much less how to predict them. To complement existing solar observations, the Coronal Spectrographic Imager in the EUV (COSIE) is a proposed telescope for use on the International Space Station, designed to view the Sun in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light. If the project is selected, COSIE would provide a thousand times improvement in EUV observations of the Sun’s atmosphere over existing telescopes, providing a better means of spotting and predicting solar storms. COSIE is a proposal by researchers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, who are also developing the technology to make the instrument possible.