{"id":10735,"date":"2022-01-02T21:34:21","date_gmt":"2022-01-02T13:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/engineers-taking-more-time-to-assess-webbs-behavior-in-space-before-continuing-deployments\/"},"modified":"2022-01-02T21:34:21","modified_gmt":"2022-01-02T13:34:21","slug":"engineers-taking-more-time-to-assess-webbs-behavior-in-space-before-continuing-deployments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/engineers-taking-more-time-to-assess-webbs-behavior-in-space-before-continuing-deployments\/","title":{"rendered":"Engineers taking more time to assess Webb\u2019s behavior in space before continuing deployments"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

\"\"
Northrop Grumman teams work with the sunshield on the James Webb Space Telescope during ground testing. Credit: Northrop Grumman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Engineers activating the James Webb Space Telescope decided Sunday to hold off tightening up the observatory\u2019s critical sunshade to allow more time to check out the performance of its power systems and overall behavior now that several major deployments are complete.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing we can learn from simulations on the ground is as good as analyzing the observatory when it\u2019s up and running,\u201d Bill Ochs, the Webb project manager, said in a NASA blog post Sunday. \u201cNow is the time \u2026 to learn everything we can about its baseline operations. Then we will take the next steps.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA is not providing \u201clive\u201d coverage of Webb\u2019s deployments and has not held a media briefing since the telescope\u2019s launch on Christmas Day. But the latest blog post said engineers wanted to more thoroughly characterize the telescope\u2019s performance now that it\u2019s finally in space while making sure motors needed for sunshade tensioning are at the \u201coptimal\u201d temperatures before proceeding.<\/p>\n

No technical details were provided.<\/p>\n

Since launch on Christmas Day, Webb has successfully fine-tuned its trajectory with two precision thruster firings, deployed its critical solar panel, unlimbered the high-gain antenna it will use to relay science data back to Earth and extended a \u201cmomentum flap\u201d to counteract the destabilizing pressure of the solar wind.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also elevated its primary mirror and science instruments by about four feet to further isolate them from the heat generated by on-board electronics and other systems.<\/p>\n

On Friday, two telescoping booms extended to either side of two pallets, pulling out and unfolding Webb\u2019s tennis court-size sunshade to kick off one of the most complex procedures in the observatory\u2019s initial activation.<\/p>\n

Made up of five hair-thin Kapton layers, the sunshade is critical to Webb\u2019s goal of capturing faint light from the first stars and galaxies to light up in the wake of the Big Bang birth of the cosmos nearly 14 billion years ago.<\/p>\n

To register that ancient radiation, now stretched out into the infrared by the expansion of space itself, Webb must be chilled to within 50 degrees of absolute zero, or nearly 400 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. The light- and heat-blocking shield needed to do that, which was folded up for launch like a skydiver\u2019s parachute, is now in the process of being extracted.<\/p>\n

The two pallets holding the sunshade were deployed and locked in place Tuesday, one on either side of Webb\u2019s 21.3-foot primary mirror. On Thursday, protective covers were commanded to roll off each pallet, exposing the still-folded sunshade membranes to space.<\/p>\n

The actual deployment began Friday when the two telescoping booms at right angles to the pallets began extending, one at a time, slowly pulling out both sides of the shield and unfolding the membranes in the process.<\/p>\n

That work started later than expected to give engineers time to confirm 107 membrane retention devices, used to hold the folded layers in place during launch, had worked as required.<\/p>\n

They did, and with both booms extended to give the sunshade its iconic kite-like shape, all five layers must now be pulled taut using motor-driven cables running through scores of pulleys. Tensioning is required to produce a gap between each layer, providing space for excess heat to migrate outward to the sides.<\/p>\n

Because the boom extension work took longer than expected, mission managers put tensioning on hold Saturday to give the team a chance to catch its collective breath. Another delay was ordered Sunday, in part to make sure the motors needed for the shade\u2019s full extraction were at the required temperatures.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve spent 20 years on the ground with Webb, designing, developing and testing,\u201d said Mike Menzel, Webb\u2019s lead systems engineer. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a week to see how the observatory actually behaves in space. It\u2019s not uncommon to learn certain characteristics of your spacecraft once you\u2019re in flight. That\u2019s what we\u2019re doing right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far, the major deployments we\u2019ve executed have gone about as smoothly as we could have hoped for. But we want to take our time and understand everything we can about the observatory before moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Northrop Grumman teams work with the sunshield on the James Webb Space Telescope during ground testing. Credit: Northrop Grumman Engineers activating the James Webb Space Telescope decided Sunday to hold off tightening up the observatory\u2019s critical sunshade to allow more time to check out the performance of its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10735"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}