The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

Support Our Science

William A. Podgorski

Center for Astrophysics

Systems Engineering Chief, Central Engineering

William A. Podgorski

wpodgorski@cfa.harvard.edu

About

William Podgorski has been a member of the Central Engineering Department at the CfA since 1986. During his employment at the CfA, he has worked on a variety of programs including Chandra, Constellation-X, Solar-B, SDO, IRIS, Solar Probe, Hi-C, G-CLEF, AGWS and GMACS. He is currently the Chief of the Systems Engineering Group within Central Engineering.

PhD, BSME

Telescopes and Instruments

Giant Magellan Telescope

Is Earth unique, or are there other planets with life in the Milky Way? To answer this question and many others, astronomers need larger and more sensitive observatories than anything we currently have. For that reason, the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian is collaborating with a number of other institutions around the world to create the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), currently under construction in Chile. The GMT will consist of seven large mirrors acting in concert as one giant telescope 80 feet across. That large size provides an unprecedented view of the sky and the ability to detect the chemical composition of exoplanet atmospheres. Like NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the GMT will be a powerful tool across the field of astronomy, providing insights into the formation of planets, the structure of galaxies, and the evolution of the universe itself.

Visit the GMT Website

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

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