We have a telescope.
The secondary mirror was successfully deployed in space today, an incredibly important milestone.
Bill Ochs, program manager of the JWST program, spoke triumphantly to his team after the secondary mirror was deployed and latched in place.
The primary mirror and sun shield are important parts of the observatory, but the secondary mirror is equally important in making the telescope function correctly.
There are four different types of mirrors on the telescope. The primary, secondary, tertiary, and fine steering mirrors are located from left to right. The artist's conception of the telescope's 18 primary mirror segments is shown in the bottom right. The credit is NASA/Ball Aerospace/Tinsley.
The mission is over if the secondary mirror doesn't deploy, said Dr. HEIDI HAMEL in an interview with me last year. If other components don't deploy correctly, there would be potential work-arounds.
If the sun shield doesn't fully deploy, it will wreck our mid-infrared observations, but maybe we can still do near-infrared. If the mirror doesn't fully open and you only have the center section, you lose sensitivity, but it could still function.
Without the secondary mirror, nothing happens.
There is a comparison of telescope mirror sizes. Credit: NASA.
The secondary mirror is large. It is a tad smaller than the primary mirror of the Spitzer Space Telescope. It looks small compared to the primary mirror. The secondary mirror is also coated in gold, giving it a wonderful reflective property.
The telescope has a secondary mirror on it. The secondary mirror assembly had to be folded and stowed in order to fit inside the Ariane 5 rocket. The mirror was released today in a carefully controlled procedure to position it in front of the primary mirror. Light can now be directed back down to the instruments.
The second Lagrangian point is 1.5 million km away from Earth and is the final destination for the JWST. The sun shield was tensioned into its final position yesterday and now the secondary mirror is being deployed.
It took 15 minutes to deploy the secondary mirror and 45 minutes to put it in place. Engineers at the Mission Operations Center at the Space Telescope Science Institute were able to confirm the steps that were beamed back to Earth.
With all the success, there is little time for the team to reflect. The primary mirror needs to be folded out and locked into place in order to complete the initial deployment. If all goes well, these events are expected by the end of the week.
The main mirror of the house intercepts red and IR light and reflects it onto a smaller mirror. The light is directed into the scientific instruments by the secondary mirror.
