14 DAY TRIAL // Critical components of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is scheduled to launch beyond 2018, have recently finished undergoing tests at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), in Huntsville, Alabama. The parts have now been sent to Redondo, California.
The most important among these components is the telescope's primary mirror backplane support structure, which will hold the 18 hexagonal segments that will make up JWST's main mirror. This instrument will allow it to be 100 times more sensitive than the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
The support structure was tested inside the Marshall X-ray and Cryogenic Test Facility (XCTF), the largest in the world. Now that these tests are done, key parts of the telescope are being shipped to Northrop Grumman, which will continue integrating instruments and assembling the spacecraft.
“We’ve been planning, developing testing techniques, and evaluating technologies for Webb in this facility for about 10 years, and then actually testing flight hardware since 2008. The tests on the hardware went really well and our team is confident the structures will operate optimally in space,” says XCTF manager, Jeff Kegley.