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Design Reference Mission (DRM)The NGST Ad Hoc Science Working Group (ASWG) was responsible for identifying the core science goals for the JWST mission and developed in 1998-1999 hypothetical observing programs to accomplish them. These 25 programs are known as the Design Reference Mission (DRM) and are used to guide telescope, instrument, and satellite designs. Ideally the JWST will be capable of accomplishing the DRM in less than half of its nominal 5 year lifetime, leaving the remainder of the observatory's mission for broader studies and followup observations. While some DRM programs may become Key Projects, Legacy Surveys, or portions of early guaranteed time, these programs are only intended to serve as examples of what the astronomy community will accomplish with JWST. The DRM is not a list of reserved targets or guaranteed time observations list. Most of these programs will be done by guest observers. Observations are included in the DRM because they are thought to be representative of the types of science that people would do with a large, infrared-optimized space telescope. The observing programs of the JWST Design Reference Mission (DRM) have been translated in a suite of potential astronomical targets, with their expected physical properties (distribution on the sky, number density and brightness), and desired observation modes (wavelength band, spectral resolution, number of revisits). This information is used by the JWST Mission Simulator (JMS) to measure the performance of different JWST mission architectures. The fraction of the DRM completed by a given observatory configuration in a given time is, to first order, a measure of the value of the design. Those designs which complete a higher fraction of the observations found are more capable than those that complete lesser fractions. The Sample JMS Reports pages show some (highly technical) results of a recent JWST design. During the creation of the DRM, the design of the JWST was in flux, and therefore the DRM implementation had to be updated to include more detail in observing requirements and to remove the parts of programs that are no longer feasible with the latest design. The DRM Update V2.3 describes the rationale behind one of the last updates of the DRM. The DRM programs are around 5 main themes, each of them addressing some of the key outstanding problems in astronomy and all themes are major items in NASA's Origins program.
View the full list of proposals and associated PDF files. |
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