A graphic shows the sun shield of the James Webb Space Telescope. The image is from NASA.
NASA personnel are studying the power subsystem of the James Webb Space Telescope to make sure the observatory is ready to execute a key procedure: tensioning its vast sun shield.
The deployment procedure for the space telescope will take a month. Mission leaders can adjust the schedule if they so choose, since most steps are controlled from the ground. The team is spending Sunday studying the observatory's power subsystem after taking Saturday as a rest day.
"Analyzing the observatory when it's up and running is the best way to learn from simulations on the ground," said Bill Ochs, the project manager at NASA's GSFC in Maryland. "Now is the time to learn everything we can about its baseline operations." We will take the next steps after that.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope mission is live.
The James Webb Space Telescope works in pictures.
The team is focused on the temperature of a set of motors that will be used during sun shield tensioning, the process that separates and smooths the five delicate layers of the kite-shaped sun shield. The sun shield is a vital component of the observatory because it is sensitive to heat.
"We've spent 20 years on the ground with him, designing, developing, and testing," said Mike Menzel, the lead systems engineer at GSFC. We had a week to see how the observatory behaves in space. It's not uncommon to learn about your craft after you're in flight. We're doing that right now. The major deployment we've executed has gone as smoothly as we could have hoped for. We want to understand everything we can about the observatory before moving forward.
NASA expects the process of tensioning the sun shield to take two days. The team decided to take New Year's Day to rest after Friday's operations ran later than expected.
Mission managers didn't want the team to be working on two parts of the observatory at the same time, so they decided to take a closer look at the motor temperatures.
The team will deploy the secondary mirror after the sun shield is fully tensioned.
The observatory is still making progress despite the paused deployment. At 3 p.m. It was more than half a million miles away from Earth, or the final destination of the Earth- sun lag point 2. The point is 1 million miles from Earth in the direction of the sun.
Follow her on social media: EmailMeghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com Follow us on social media.
