Less than six months after launch, NASA's next- generation space observatory has had its first noticeable impact.
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched in December of 2011. It has spent the intervening months trekking out to its deep-space post and preparing for science observations, a complicated process that has gone remarkably smooth.
The observatory has experienced its first few impacts from small pieces of space debris called micrometeoroids. The observatory's schedule and scientific legacy are not expected to go down well.
Lee Feinberg, the manager of the optical telescope element at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said in the statement that they expected the occasional impacts to degrade telescope performance over time. Since launch, we have had four smaller measurable micrometeoroid strikes that were consistent with expectations, and this one more recently that is larger than we assumed.
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The most serious impact occurred between May 23 and May 25 and affected the C3 segment of the primary mirror.
The JWST is designed to endure micrometeoroid impacts and is expected to do so. The observatory's engineers tried to understand how real events might affect the mission's science by using mirror samples.
The recent impact was larger than those that mission personnel had tested on the ground.
NASA officials are confident that the $10 billion telescope will perform well despite the early impact.
The space environment includes harsh ultraviolet light and charged particles from the sun, as well as cosmic rays from exotic sources, and occasional strikes by micrometeoroids. It was designed and built to perform its ambitious science mission even after a long time in space.
Officials noted in the statement that the agency had bargained for a worse-than- expected start to the campaign.
Predicting some micrometeoroid impacts is possible. It is possible for personnel to maneuver the optical systems into safety for certain events. The statement said that the recent impact was not part of the shower.
Engineers can individually adjust the 18 primary mirror segments on the observatory to keep the mirror in perfect working order.
NASA is focused on better understanding the environment that the observatory will experience throughout its mission as the team continues to evaluate the impact. In the direction opposite the sun, the Earth-sun Lagrange point 2 is located.
Feinberg said that they would use the flight data to update their analysis of performance over time and also develop operational approaches to assure they maximized the image performance of Webb.
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