An Uncharted Path: The Journey of Charlie Atkinson '80, Chief Engineer of the James Webb Space Telescope

This article is excerpted from the fall 2024 issue of Governor's, the Archon magazine. To read the full article, click here.

Be sure to join us on Thursday, March 27 at 7:00 p.m. for a live event with Charlie where he'll talk about his journey with the Webb telescope and recent findings from the project! Register for event.

The steep peaks and breathtaking vistas of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park make it the ideal place to steal an unobstructed look into the deep night sky. Here, atop the striking Mount LeConte or along the steep climb to Clingmans Dome, space escapes artificial light. Ursa Major twinkles against the cloudy mist, while the borders of seven states hide in the dark.

These mountains gave Charlie Atkinson ’80 his first experience with two passions that would shape his life: the grounded presence of hiking and the vast questions of space. 

“My dad took me on my first backpacking trip when I was 3 years old. He made me a rucksack out of pine, and I carried my clothes and other small supplies,” said Atkinson. “We only went a couple of miles, but that was enough. I was hooked.” 

Atkinson spent his childhood backpacking with his father and brother Tom, first in the Smokies and then in New Hampshire’s White Mountains when the family moved from Tennessee to the Boston suburbs. By the time he entered Govs in 1977, Atkinson was an avid hiker with a penchant for math and the sciences. 

“I think of science and math in the same way that I think of puzzles—they’re challenging, fun, and interesting,” said Atkinson, affectionately nicknamed “Kibby” by classmates. “At Govs, I found the logical exercises of geometry fascinating, and I enjoyed biology with Mr. Anderson P'78. He was a very good teacher. He would call tests ‘opportunities to demonstrate your knowledge.’ And that twist in perspective on how to think about a challenge stuck with me.” 

When he graduated and went to Washington and Lee University (W&L), Atkinson continued hiking and backpacking in Shenandoah National Park and along the Blue Ridge Mountains. He majored in math, physics, and geophysics—geology hooked him after an elective introduced him to the geological mapping W&L professors had done in the Appalachian region. 

And then, after years of being deeply connected to the Earth, it was time to turn his attention skyward. 

Atkinson began his career at Kodak in Rochester, New York, where he worked on a laser inter-satellite communication system, digital camera systems, and several other space-borne optical systems before becoming responsible for the integration and alignment of the grazing incidence cylindrical mirrors on the Chandra X-Ray Telescope. He was on-site in southern California to lead the telescope’s integration, completed in October 1997. 

“After a long winter back in Rochester, I decided the weather was much better in southern California,” Atkinson joked. “So I reached out to people I worked with there and ended up getting a job on what was then called the Next Generation Space Telescope.” 

That telescope would be renamed the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb), a groundbreaking high-resolution instrument with the power to reveal unknown aspects of astronomy and cosmology (such as the ability to observe the formation of the first galaxies). 

The Webb launched in December 2021, and its first astonishing images were released to the public on July 11, 2022. Atkinson worked on the project for 24 years. 

The project, like Atkinson’s role in it, is complicated. “What drew me to the project was that it had never been done before. It was pushing the envelope. This was the first segmented deployable telescope ever put into space— you take a telescope six times bigger than anything put into space to date (the Hubble Space Telescope), fold it into pieces, launch it, and put it back together in space. The challenge of it pulled me in,” he said. 

These mountains gave Charlie Atkinson ’80 his first experience with two passions that would shape his life: the grounded presence of hiking, and the vast questions of space.

When the telescope launched from French Guiana to start its million-mile journey to orbit around the second Lagrange point, Atkinson was the Webb’s chief engineer, responsible for the technical success of the mission. Before that role, he was the Northrop Grumman Vehicle Engineering deputy manager, after having been the deputy telescope manager for Webb since the program’s inception, managing the telescope’s technology development, design, assembly, and testing.  

“People have told me, ‘Wow, you had the same job for 24 years!’ But that’s not the case because the program evolved over time,” said Atkinson. “At first, it was all about new technology development. Then, there was a detailed design phase. Then we started building. We finished the telescope itself in March 2016. Then came the task of integrating it with all the instruments, then the spacecraft and the tennis court-sized sunshield, and finally subjecting Webb to a battery of tests to ensure it would launch successfully and perform as expected.” 

When the telescope was complete, Atkinson said it was time to hand the “keys” to the scientists. He likens the actual launch to a collective sigh. 

“I wasn’t the only one who spent their career working on this project, so being able to share the launch with a group of people who are incredibly brilliant and innovative, and the joint satisfaction of seeing an idea we had more than 20 years ago come to fruition and work better than expected, it’s amazing,” he said. “Scientists are still talking about how incredibly grateful they are that the observatory is performing as it does.” 

With a momentous 24-year accomplishment complete, Atkinson took his eyes from the sky and looked for his next challenge a little closer to home. 

“My brother and I had always talked about thruhiking the Appalachian Trail. He ended up having some back issues, which is when it became poignantly clear that if I’m ever going to attempt it, I better do it while my body is still able,” he said.

In March 2023, Atkinson began the rigorous 2,198-mile, six-month trek from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Mount Katahdin, Maine. His brother shadowed his journey, meeting with Atkinson every few days to restock his food supply and gear. “We only planned out about a week ahead because the weather could change everything. Also, hiking is much easier in Virginia than in New Hampshire, so I had to adjust as I went,” Atkinson said. 

Atkinson met other thru-hikers on the trail, yet it was mostly a solitary experience. He watched the seasons change by noting the wildflowers coming into bloom— the bluebonnets, then the trillium, then the Mountain Laurel, dogwoods, and rhododendron. Strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries sprouted in wild clumps, and the first hints of fall curled the leaves as he reached the final trail marker in September 2023. “To be outdoors, a witness to that evolution, stopping for a minute to grab a handful of wild berries and take it all in, it was very cool,” he said. “It was a real sense of accomplishment.”

The James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope (Webb), launched in December 2021, represents a monumental step forward in our quest to understand the universe. Operating from a solar orbit near the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, the Webb’s primary mission focuses on infrared astronomy, leveraging its 6.5-meter-diameter primary mirror to explore the cosmos with unprecedented clarity.

The Webb has already delivered groundbreaking discoveries in its relatively short time in space. These include capturing the universe’s deepest infrared images, unveiling early galaxy clusters, and offering stunning cosmic vistas. Notably, the telescope has observed Jupiter, detected water on a distant gas giant, and even found organic molecules in a galaxy billions of light-years away.

By observing objects too faint or distant for previous telescopes like Hubble, the Webb is revolutionizing our understanding of the universe’s earliest galaxies, characterizing exoplanet atmospheres, and probing the Solar System’s depths, marking a new era in space exploration with its remarkable findings.