NASA's new deep-space telescope has been affected by a small space rock.
One of the observatory's 18 hexagonal golden mirrors was hit by a micrometeoroid. In June, NASA disclosed that the debris was larger than had been anticipated. The image that drives home the severity of the blow was shared by scientists on the mission.
The effect on the person was small. The report describes the investigation and modeling that engineers are doing to assess the long-term effects of micrometeroids.
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The telescope will be in space for 20 years. According to the report authors, scientists don't know how much impact the strikes will have on operations.
Despite occasional space rock strikes, the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope are still operational despite the dangers of micrometeroids.
The 18 segments of the hexagonal mirror were put into the best position to capture light during the alignment phase after the primary mirror was discovered to have been damaged.
The report stated that the strikes came in at a rate of once per month. Some of the resulting changes are correctable. One of the strikes caused a significant blemish to a segment known as C3 and caused more concern. Significant uncorrectable change in the overall figure of that segment was caused by the strike in May.
The overall impact to the mission is small because only a small part of the telescope area was affected. Engineers were able to account for most of the damage by realigning the segments of the mirrors.
Engineers don't know how often such events will happen. The team isn't sure if the hit to segment C3 was a rare event. It is possible that they got a high-energy impact that should only occur once every few years.
The team wrote that it's possible that it's more susceptible to damage by micrometeoroids than previously thought. To estimate the hazardous population of micrometeoroids, modeling is ongoing.
Reducing the amount of time Webb points directly into itsorbital direction could be a solution.
According to Astronomy magazine, the main mirror's performance is assessed by how much it changes star light. The C3 segment had a wavefront error of 56 nanometers rms, which was in line with the 17 other mirror parts.
The impact was reduced by realigning the mirror segments as a whole. The realigned mirror segments are above the previous best wavefront error rms values for the time being.
According to Nature (opens in new tab), engineers are keeping an eye on future dust-generating events, such as in 2023 and 2024, when Webb is expected to fly through particles left behind by a comet.
The Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama has a meteoroid environment office. The micrometeroid issue has been emphasized by NASA officials during media briefings.
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