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Hey, my job's on HN! I work on JWST (simulation software, among other stuff) and I think it's pretty cool too :)

As an astronomer who works on infrared data every day, I am really grateful for everything you guys are doing. What kind of simulation software are you developing?

I'm working on WebbPSF, a tool to simulate PSFs for the Webb instruments. I'm also adapting it for WFIRST, a future mission. It's going to be kind of like TinyTim is for Hubble when it's done.

Very cool. How much data is going to be arriving from JWST daily? Is it going to be readily open to the public?

> Is it going to be readily open to the public?

The scientific data will be available to the public, sometimes after a "proprietary" period (typically in the range 6–18 months) where the data is only accessible to the team who successfully proposed to obtain that data.

Not really my department! I do work at STScI, which operates the MAST archive that will eventually hold all this data, so I'm sure someone in my building knows.

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