Greg Robinson Reluctantly Repaired NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope

In 2018, the James Webb Space Telescope, the beleaguered project to build an instrument that could look back at the earliest stars in the universe, seemed derailed. Again.

The parts of the telescope and its instruments were complete, but they still had to be assembled and tested. The launch date slipped further into the future and costs, already approaching nearly $8 billion, rose again. Congress, which had provided several large loans over the years, was not happy that NASA asked for even more money.

This is when Gregory Robinson was asked to take over as program director from Webb.

At the time, Mr. Robinson was the deputy associate administrator for programs at NASA, making him responsible for assessing the performance of more than 100 science missions.

He said no. “I enjoyed my job at the time,” recalls Mr. Robinson.

Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for science, asked him again.

“He had kind of a confluence of two skills,” said Dr. Zurbuchen about Mr. Robinson. “The first is that he had seen a lot of projects, including projects that were in trouble. And the second part is he has that interpersonal confidence building activity. So he can go into a room, he can sit in a cafeteria, and by the time he leaves the cafeteria, he knows half the people.”

Finally, Mr. Robinson gave in. In March 2018, he took on the task of getting the telescope back on track and back into space.

“He turned both of my arms to take over Webb,” Mr. Robinson said.

His path to that role seemed unlikely.

At NASA, Mr. Robinson, 62, is a rarity: a black man among the agency’s top executives.

“Certainly, people who see me in this role are an inspiration,” he said, “and it’s also an acknowledgment that they can be there too.”

He says there are many black engineers at NASA now, but “certainly not as many as there should be” and most have not risen high enough to be seen by the public, for example participating in press conferences like Mr. Robinson. has followed the launch of Webb.

“We have a lot of things that we need to try to improve,” said Mr. Robinson.

Born in Danville, Virginia, on the southern edge of the state, he was the ninth of 11 children. His parents were tobacco farmers. He attended an elementary school for black children until fifth grade, when the school district was finally integrated in 1970.

He was the only one in his family to pursue science and math, with a football scholarship that paid his way to Virginia Union University in Richmond. He later transferred to Howard University. He received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Virginia Union and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Howard.

He started working at NASA in 1989, following in the footsteps of some friends who had already worked there. Over the years, he served as deputy director of NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and deputy chief engineer.

The Webb assignment came amid bad publicity for the project.

The target launch date had been pushed back again, to May 2020 as of 2019. NASA had established a review board of outside experts to advise what needed to be done to get the Webb to the finish line.

A month into Mr. Robinson’s tenure, a failed test provided a vivid illustration of how much repair needed to be done.

Spacecraft must survive the powerful vibrations of launch, so engineers test them by shaking them. When Webb was shamefully shaken, the screws holding the lid of the telescope’s large, fragile sunshade came loose.

“That brought us back months — about 10 months — just that one thing,” said Mr. Robinson. The launch date was pushed back to March 2021 and the price tag increased by another $800 million.

The incident appeared to be a repeat of previous problems encountered by the Webb project† When the telescope was named Webb in 2002, he had a budget forecast of $1 billion to $3.5 billion for launch as early as 2010. By 2010, the launch date had shifted to 2014 and the estimated cost for the telescope had risen to $4 billion. 5.1 billion . After reviews found that both the budget and schedule were unrealistic, NASA reintroduced the program in 2011 with a much higher budget not to exceed $8 billion and an October 2018 launch date.

Several years after the reset in 2011, the program appeared to be in good working order. “They were hitting milestones,” said Mr. Robinson. “Really good planning margin.”

But, he added: “There are things you don’t see happening there. The ghosts always get you, don’t they?”

For the screws that came loose during the shake test, it was found that the technical drawings did not specify how much torque to apply. That was left to the contractor, Northrop Grumman, to decide, and they weren’t tight enough.

“You should have a spec to make sure it’s right,” said Mr. Robinson.

The assessment committee issued its report, noting a range of issues and making 32 recommendations. NASA tracked them all, Mr. Robinson said.

One of the recommendations was to conduct an audit of the entire spacecraft to identify “embedded problems” — errors that occurred without anyone noticing.

The engineers have checked the drawings and specifications. They looked at the purchase requisitions to make sure that what was ordered matched the specifications and that the suppliers supplied the correct items.

“Multiple teams had been set up, led by the most experienced people,” said Mr Robinson. “They really dug into the paperwork.”

Indeed, for the most part, the hardware matched what was originally designed. A few things mismatched—Mr. Robinson said none of them should lead to catastrophic failure—and those were resolved.

When Mr. Robinson took over as program director, the efficiency of Webb’s scheduling — a measure of how the pace of work compared to what was scheduled — dropped by about 55 percent, said Dr. Zurbuchen. Much of that was the result of avoidable human error.

dr. Zurbuchen said the Webb team was full of smart, capable people, who had grown wary of expressing criticism. He wrote mr. Robinson admitted he had turned things around. Within a few months, efficiency was up to 95 percent, with better communication and managers more willing to share potentially bad news.

“You needed someone who could gain the trust of the team and what we had to figure out was what was wrong with the team,” said Dr. Zurbuchen. “The speed at which he turned this thing over was just astonishing.”

However, a number of new issues caused additional delays and cost overruns. Some, such as the pandemic and a problem with the payload housing on the European-made Ariane 5 rocket, were beyond Mr Robinson’s control. Further human error occurred, such as last November when a band securing the telescope to the launch support broke, causing the telescope to shake but do no damage.

But when the Ariane 5 with Webb finally launched over Christmas, everything went smoothly and the implementation has been smooth since then.

As the sightings begin, there will soon be no need for a program director for Webb.

Mr Robinson proudly says he has forced himself out of his job.