Northrop Grumman received a Program Excellence award from Aviation Week for leading the industry team
building NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The award honors program teams for exemplifying the best in
value creation, leadership, adapting to complexity and executing with excellence, as evidenced by metrics that gauge program goals.
The Global Hawk team was also recognized as a finalist.
The James Webb Space Telescope team, led by Scott Willoughby, vice president and James Webb Space Telescope program manager, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, was the winner of the subsystem research and design category for the completion and delivery of the telescope. The telescope subsystem team is led by Dr. Scott Texter, telescope manager, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems.
The telescope subsystem is one of the four main elements of the Webb Observatory. The other elements include the spacecraft, sunshield and Integrated Science Instrument Module. The telescope works with the other elements, supporting Webb’s ability to look back over 13.5 billion years to see the formation of the first stars and galaxies. “All of the elements require a team effort, and our commitment to collaboration allows us to develop an integrated tool that will inspire future generations of scientists and engineers,” said Texter. “The degree of complexity and challenges of developing the largest telescope ever built for space are immense, but we continue working together to find innovative solutions to perplexing technical issues that have never been encountered before.”