James Webb solar panels deploy early

[dan_b]

3 layers of the sunshield successfully tensioned!

Final 2 layers to be done tomorrow.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/01/03/ ... tightened/

[dan_b]

All 5 layers of the sunshield now fully tensioned - amazing stuff.

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/suns ... -telescope

They're moving onto secondary mirror boom deploy today.

[spread-tee]

That's a relief, I worry when NASA claim their spacecraft is in "good health" that's what they claimed about the HST, even after Chris Burrows an English optician had calculated it had severe spherical abberation.

Desp

[Countrypaul]

Looks like deployment complete: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59914936

[dan_b]

yep, incredible achievement to have got through all of that seemingly without issue!
Next step is calibration of the mirrors so that each of those segments is correctly aligned for focus.

[spread-tee]

Cool,

I think that's trickiest and least practiced operation complete?? fingers crossed. Collimation could be fun with hundreds of actuators to diddle, mind you a lot of ground based scopes do have adaptive optics so it should be a well known and practiced tech.

Desp

[dan_b]

Well, they've got through the 300+ single point of failure steps seemingly without issue. But there's still plenty of big steps to come. It's still incredible to me that it's got this far to be honest!

[spread-tee]

Absolutely,

it's a kind of mind boggling insanity to strap billion pound pieces of super high tech kit on top of a bomb and fling them out into space with its hard vacuum and radiation and then expect them to last for years. The IR range of the spectrum should be very interesting if it all works as planned.

Desp

[dan_b]

So it looks like the James Webb telescope is fully deployed.
Over the past few days the mirror calibration has started, but that's apparently going to take another 2-3 months.
Its also interesting to note that the telescope is actually slowing down, relative to Earth, as it climbs up the gravity well to the L2 point. The idea is that when it reaches L2, it gets there with zero forward velocity, so that it sits in that stable parking point. Weird/cool.

Finally, the temperature differential across the sunshield is now a staggering 2264C - it's 57C on the hot side, and -207C on the cold side. Still not quite cold enough for its operating temperature, which is meant to be -223C.

The whole thing is just staggeringly amazing.

[Countrypaul]

Finally, the temperature differential across the sunshield is now a staggering 2264C - it's 57C on the hot side, and -207C on the cold side. Still not quite cold enough for its operating temperature, which is meant to be -223C.

The whole thing is just staggeringly amazing.

2264C difference would be staggering, but I'm sure you're exagerating slightly