Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2022 5:25 am
Webb telescope fully deploys sunshield in mission milestone
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-webb-tele ... hield.htmlThe tennis court size, kite-shaped apparatus acts like a parasol, ensuring the observatory is kept in the shade so that it is able to detect faint infrared signals from the far reaches of the Universe.
The James Webb Space Telescope fully deployed its tennis-court sized sunshield Tuesday, a critical milestone for the success of its mission to study every phase of cosmic history, NASA said.
"All five layers of the sunshield are fully tensioned," said an announcer at the observatory's control center in Baltimore, where team members cheered, a live feed showed.
The 70-foot (21 meter) long, kite-shaped apparatus acts like a parasol, ensuring Webb's instruments are kept in the shade so they can detect faint infrared signals from the far reaches of the Universe.
Each of the layers was unfolded one by one over two days. Working together they offer an SPF (sun protection factor) of about one million.
Because the telescope was too large to fit into a rocket's nose cone in its operational configuration, it had to be transported folded, origami style. Unfurling is a complex and challenging task, the most daunting such deployment NASA has ever attempted.