Northrop
Grumman-Designed Sunshield Completes Preliminary Design Review
(20 March 2008) The tennis court-sized
sunshield built by Northrop Grumman for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope
(JWST) has completed its preliminary design review at the company's Redondo
Beach facility.
The Webb Telescope is the next-generation space
observatory, designed to explore phenomena from distant galaxies to nearby
planets and stars. From the origins of the universe to the formation of star
systems capable of supporting life on planets such as Earth, JWST will give
scientists unprecedented access to unexplored regions of space.
The
five-layer sunshield consists of extremely thin, specially coated reflective
membranes and a supporting structure. The sunshield blocks solar heat, keeping
the telescope's science instruments operating at cryogenic temperatures so
astronomers can study distant galaxies, young stars and planetary systems at
near- and mid-infrared wavelengths.
"The completion of the preliminary
design review allows the detailed engineering design to move forward and
maintains the delivery schedule for the Observatory," said Martin Mohan,
Northrop Grumman JWST program manager.
(source: Northrop Grumman
Corporation)
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