NASA James Webb Space Telescope has entered a 'cooldown period' after being fully unfolded in space two weeks after departing from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.
The telescope's engineers successfully unfolded Webb's tennis court-sized solar shields in a week-long operation. They exposed its mirrors, bringing the final phase of dangerous deployments to a close on Jan. 8.
The multibillion-dollar observatory has completed the most difficult stage of the mission, NASA stated in a tweet. Its equipment will now be cooled to temperatures below -200 degrees Celsius. Following then, the James Webb space telescope's updates would become less regular.
❄️ Now that our deployments are complete, just like our telescope, we’re entering a period of cooldown. Our updates will be less frequent, but that doesn’t mean things have stopped happening: https://t.co/32QJr7R8am
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) January 10, 2022
Thread ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/3sEF9SVIS5
James Webb Space Telescope Starts to Cool Down
Alexandra Lockwood, the project scientist for James Webb's science communications, said in a blog post that the commissioning procedure would take five months. After the telescope's mirrors are fully relocated out of their launch positions, the steps in the process will be:
- Additional cooling of the entire telescope, including in particular the Mid-Infrared Instrument.
- Checking and aligning the second and 18 mirror sections into a single unified optical system, initially with the NIRCam instrument, then separately and in tandem with all instruments.
- Each of the four instruments, as well as their several scientific modes, will be calibrated.
You’re hot and you’re cold… 🎵#NASAWebb is split into a “hot side” and “cold side” by its sunshield. The sunshield will always be facing the Sun to block out heat and light, as Webb's mirrors need to stay extremely cold to observe faint heat signals in the universe! pic.twitter.com/GciNPo04nr
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) December 29, 2021
JWST Also Starts Its Months-Long Mirror Alignment
Engineers are starting to align James Webb Space Telescope's 18-segment big golden mirror. According to NASA officials in a blog update published on Wednesday, the work will eventually get these separate reflectors to act as a single focusing device.
They started the operation by instructing 132 actuators to move and position the primary and secondary mirror pieces simply to make sure everything worked properly. The researchers also double-checked that the actuators are guiding Webb's fine steering mirror, which will be employed during image stabilization.
The observatory crew will labor for around ten days to shift the mirror segments out of their launch configurations. More detailed work will continue after that, Space.com added.
NASA anticipates that the alignment will take three months in total, putting the project on track to be completed by mid-April if all goes according to plan. Webb launched on Dec. 25 and may have enough fuel for 20 years of study. However, its longevity on space may also depend on the mirrors' condition.
JWST's Complicated Procedure
Soon after the launch on Dec. 25, the complex deployment operation began. On Jan. 4, the crew completed unfolding and tensioning the craft's sunshield, which will block the Sun's and Earth's heat and allow the telescope and its infrared-sensitive equipment to cool to -370°F (-223°C).
The telescope's primary mirror wings were finally unfolded as the final important stage. The primary mirror of the JWST is made up of 18 hexagonal pieces, three of which were folded back on each side after launch. Astronomy.com said the engineers took a couple of hours to deploy the parts after unlocking the mechanisms that hold them in place and rotating them into place with motors.
The JWST crew completed this sensitive operation for the port wing on Friday, Jan. 7. The team worked on the starboard wing the next day, and it was hooked into place at 1:17 p.m. EST.
Check out more news and information on Space in Science Times.
