more at http://scitech.quickfound.net/astro/astronomy_news_and_links.html 'When the next-generation space telescope was being designed, engineers had to ensure there was a place large enough to test it, considering it's as big as a tennis court. That honor fell upon the famous "Chamber A" in the thermal-vacuum test facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. NASA's "Chamber A" thermal vacuum testing chamber famous for being used during Apollo missions has now been upgraded and remodeled to accommodate testing the James Webb Space Telescope. Chamber A is now the largest high-vacuum, cryogenic-optical test chamber in the world, and made famous for testing the space capsules for NASA's Apollo mission, with and without the mission crew. For three years, NASA Johnson engineers have been building and remodeling the chamber interior for the temperature needed to test the Webb. Testing will confirm the telescope and science instrument systems will perform properly together in the cold temperatures of space. Additional test support equipment includes mass spectrometers, infrared cameras and television cameras so engineers can keep an eye on the Webb while it's being tested. ' Public domain film from NASA. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011100/a011182/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Environment_Simulation_Laboratory The Space Environment Simulation Laboratory (SESL) in Building 32 at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center was built in 1965. It initially was used to test Apollo Program spacecraft and equipment in a space environment. It can simulate the vacuum and thermal environments that would be encountered. It consists of two man-rated chambers: A (larger) and B. The laboratory continues in this use today. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), previously known as Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), is a planned space telescope optimized for observations in the infrared, and a scientific successor to the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope. The main technical features are a large and very cold 6.5-meter (21 ft) diameter mirror, an observing position far from Earth, orbiting the Earth--Sun L2 point, and four specialized instruments. The combination of these features will give JWST unprecedented resolution and sensitivity from long-wavelength visible to the mid-infrared, enabling its two main scientific goals -- studying the birth and evolution of galaxies, and the formation of stars and planets. In planning since 1996, the project represents an international collaboration of about 17 countries led by NASA, and with significant contributions from the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. It is named after James E. Webb, the second administrator of NASA, who played an integral role in the Apollo program. JWST's capabilities will enable a broad range of investigations across many subfields of astronomy. One particular goal involves observing some of the most distant objects in the Universe, beyond the reach of current ground and space based instruments. This includes the very first stars, the epoch of reionization, and the formation of the first galaxies. Another goal is understanding the formation of stars and planets. This will include imaging molecular clouds and star-forming clusters, studying the debris disks around stars, direct imaging of planets, and spectroscopic examination of planetary transits. The mission was under review for cancellation by the United States Congress in 2011 after about $3 billion had been spent, and more than 75 percent of its hardware was either in production or undergoing testing. In November 2011, Congress reversed plans to cancel the JWST and instead capped additional funding to complete the project at $8 billion... The JWST's primary scientific mission has four main components: to search for light from the first stars and galaxies that formed in the Universe after the Big Bang, to study the formation and evolution of galaxies, to understand the formation of stars and planetary systems and to study planetary systems and the origins of life... The observatory is currently scheduled to be launched by an Ariane 5 from Guiana Space Centre Kourou, French Guiana into an L2 orbit with a launch mass of approximately 6.2 tons. After a commissioning period of approximately six months the observatory will begin the science mission which is expected to last a minimum of five years. The potential for extension of the science mission beyond this period exists and the observatory is being designed accordingly...

• published: 25 Jan 2013
• views: 5205