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Telescopes Don't Usually Get COCOA, But This One...

JWST instrument will help keep its eyes' curvature correct

Dec 15, 2011 15:09 GMT  ·  By
COCOA will allow the program to verify the optical performance of the 6.5-meter primary mirror on the JWST, at its 40-degree Kelvin operating temperature
   COCOA will allow the program to verify the optical performance of the 6.5-meter primary mirror on the JWST, at its 40-degree Kelvin operating temperature

The Center of Curvature Optical Assembly (COCOA) tool will be used on the NASA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) this winter, when engineers building the massive space observatory will test to see whether its mirrors are perfectly shaped and aligned or not.

Having a correct mirror alignment tends to be rather important, considering that otherwise the billions of dollars and years of work spent on the spacecraft would have been for nothing. COCOA will ensure that this does not happen, and that all 18 mirror segments work as one.

“We need to check that the mirrors are of the right prescription, just like eyeglasses, so the images from our telescope are not blurry,” NASA Goddard Space Flight Center JWST optical telescope manager Lee Feinberg explains.

All tests conducted on the mirrors thus far have proven that each of them is perfectly polished. COCOA will have to make sure that there are no problems when it comes to fitting the mirrors together, moving them individually, and producing perfectly-tuned light interferometry.