After decades of research and development, NASA finally launched the James Webb telescope last Christmas. The historic launch was successful after some delays, but this was only the first obstacle considering the complexity of the cellular space telescope. Next is a series of deployments of the most important parts of the telescope.
The movable parts of the James Webb telescope are folded so that the telescope is small enough to fit a 16-foot Ariane 5 rocket. The $10 billion telescope has a total of 50 major deployments and 178 release mechanisms before it is fully formed. The telescope has now reached the most critical part of unfolding its huge five-layer sunshade the size of a tennis court.
NASA began tensioning the first layer of the sun visor on Monday, followed by the second and third layers. These three layers are closest to the sun, and the entire tightening process requires five and a half hours for the team to complete. The tensioning of the last two layers of the Weber visor will take place tomorrow. “The membrane tensioning phase of sun visor deployment is particularly challenging because of the complex interactions between structure, tensioning mechanism, cables, and membranes,” said James Cooper, NASA’s Webb Visor Manager, at Goda Work at the German Space Flight Center.
After the last two layers are tightened, the sun visor will be fully deployed. This five-layer sun visor is important because it can protect the telescope from solar radiation. Since the James Webb telescope has infrared light observations, the instruments inside the telescope must be kept extremely cold. The sun visor not only protects it from solar radiation, but also protects other sources of light and heat, including the heat emitted by the observatory itself.
The final destination of the James Webb telescope is the second Lagrangian point or L2, which is 1 million miles from the earth. Unlike the Hubble telescope, the Webb telescope does not orbit the earth, but orbits the sun. The mission of the telescope is to observe very weak infrared signals from very distant objects and to help scientists learn more about the origin of our universe.
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