By Abram Farrington | Staff Writer
While some research takes Baylor professors to the lab, the work of two Baylor professors is taking them far beyond the walls and into space.
Baylor professors Dr. Benjamin Rose and Dr. Peter James both work with NASA and conduct research for upcoming projects, including the Roman Space Telescope and SPARX lunar mission.
Rose is an assistant professor in the physics department and is currently one of four researchers working on a groundbreaking infrastructure for a new telescope called the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope. With this telescope, NASA will be able to obtain data more efficiently than ever before. According to the NASA website, the telescope will “settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and astrophysics.”
“I’ve been working on this as my core research since my post-doc in 2018,” Rose said. “We’re now late in the game. Roman is now 95% built and is scheduled to launch Sept. 26, 2026.”
The anticipation for Rose is building up as Roman enters its final year before launch.
“It’s going to be different than what we’ve ever expected,” Rose said. “You never fully know what you’re going to see until it’s out there.”
Even after launch, the Roman Space Telescope will still be undergoing maintenance, Rose said. The first year comes with consistently updating the pipeline and radio.
“This next year will be hefty. So will the first year of operations,” Rose said. “We’ve learned so much about this instrument, and it’s only a fraction of what we need to know when it is out there.”
James, an associate professor in the geosciences department, is also working with NASA. He works for the SPARX Science Definition Team (SDT), a group looking into samples from different areas of the moon.
“My team is in one of the fun stages of the space exploration process, and that is the formulation of the overarching science questions,” James said. “We don’t know what the rover will find when it scoops up rocks, but our job is to make sure that we have the best chance of learning something new about the moon.”
James oversees the next lunar mission, building a long-range rover to collect rocks on the moon. The fun part, James said, is exploring all the what-if questions that arise when sending the rover to the moon.
A Baylor press release quotes James describing his opportunity as a “privilege to explore creation through science.”
Despite the double commitment of research and teaching, James said the balance is much easier than he had predicted. His research and teaching “feed off of each other.”
James finds opportunities in both teaching and research. Rose finds difficulty, but still manages to cherish his time here at Baylor as a professor.
“It’s a bit more difficult because this isn’t just a lab down the hall. There are times when I have to go on trips for meetings that are in Baltimore or other places,” Rose said. “But just like anything, you must prioritize what needs to be done.”
