NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Completes Final Functional Tests to Prepare for Launch
February marked significant progress for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which completed its final functional performance tests at Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, California. Testing teams successfully completed two important milestones that confirmed the observatory’s internal electronics are all functioning as intended, and that the spacecraft and its four scientific instruments can send and receive data properly through the same network they will use in space. These milestones move Webb closer to being ready to launch in October.
These tests are known as the comprehensive systems test, which took place at Northrop Grumman, and the ground segment test, which took place in collaboration with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
March 3, 2021
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s most complex infrared telescope. In February 2021, It successfully passed its final functional performance tests, moving it closer to its launch in October.
During its final full systems test, technicians powered on all of the James Webb Space Telescope’s various electrical components installed on the observatory, and cycled through their planned operations to ensure each was functioning, and communicating with each other. Image via NASA/ Chris Gunn.
Significant progress was made in the development of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope – also known as JWST or simply the Webb – last month, February 2021, marking the success of its final functional performance tests. The two testing milestones – the comprehensive systems test and the ground segment test – confirmed the observatory’s internal electronics are operating as intended. They also verified that it and its four science instruments can send and receive
NASA s Roman Mission Will Probe Galaxy s Core for Hot Jupiters, Brown Dwarfs
When it launches in the mid-2020s, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will explore an expansive range of infrared astrophysics topics. One eagerly anticipated survey will use a gravitational effect called microlensing to reveal thousands of worlds that are similar to the planets in our solar system. Now, a new study shows that the same survey will also unveil more extreme planets and planet-like bodies in the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, thanks to their gravitational tug on the stars they orbit.
“We were thrilled to discover that Roman will be able to offer even more information about the planets throughout our galaxy than originally planned,” said Shota Miyazaki, a graduate student at Osaka University in Japan who led the study. “It will be very exciting to learn more about a new, unstudied batch of worlds.”
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT researchers have discovered four new exoplanets orbiting a sun-like star just over 200 light-years from Earth. Because of the diversity of these planets and brightness of their star, this system could be an ideal target for atmospheric characterization with NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. Tansu Daylan, a postdoc at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, led the study published in The Astronomical Journal on Jan. 25.
With further study, says Daylan, this bright star and its many planets could be critical to understanding how planets take shape and evolve. “When it comes to characterizing planetary atmospheres around sun-like stars, this is likely one of the best targets we will ever get,” he says of the results he presented earlier in the month at the 237th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Loading video.
VIDEO: Illustration depicting a brown dwarf, which range from about 4,000 to 25,000 times Earth s mass. They re too heavy to be characterized as planets, but not quite massive enough to undergo. view more
Credit: NASA s Goddard Space Flight Center
When it launches in the mid-2020s, NASA s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will explore an expansive range of infrared astrophysics topics. One eagerly anticipated survey will use a gravitational effect called microlensing to reveal thousands of worlds that are similar to the planets in our solar system. Now, a new study shows that the same survey will also unveil more extreme planets and planet-like bodies in the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, thanks to their gravitational tug on the stars they orbit.