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JWST Elements Undergo Testing at GSFC

The spacecraft is destined to replace Hubble as NASA's flagship telescope

Apr 13, 2012 10:00 GMT  ·  By
OSIM is seen here as it's lowered into the SES, at NASA Goddard
   OSIM is seen here as it's lowered into the SES, at NASA Goddard

Officials at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in Greenbelt, Maryland, announce that the OTE (Optical Telescope Element) Simulator, or OSIM, a component developed for the James Webb Space Telescope, is currently undergoing thermal vacuum testing.

The giant test chamber is called the Space Environment Simulator (SES), and its main function is to emulate the conditions the telescope and its instruments will have to endure in the L2 Lagrangian point.

OSIM will never fly to space on the JWST, but analyzing it will give engineers more clues about how the advanced cameras and spectrographs on the actual spacecraft will behave in the coldness of space.

The actual OTE will be the main “eye” of NASA's next-generation, $8.8 billion observatory. At this point, its replica, the OSIM, is being subjected to temperatures as low as 42 Kelvin (-384.1 degrees Fahrenheit or -231.1ºC).