The Nancy Grace Romanian Space Telescope is a NASA observatory designed to study dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics. Featuring a primary mirror with a diameter of 2.4 meters (similar in size to the Hubble Space Telescope), the Roman telescope will have a field of view 100 times greater than Hubble’s field of view, allowing it to capture a more complete picture of the universe and delve deeper into its depths. its secrets. Image source: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA’s Romanian Space Telescope team integrates a complex electrical array, essential for communications and powering the spacecraft. After a two-year detailed build and preparatory “baking” process, the spacecraft is being assembled, with future installations of power components planned.
The NASA Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has begun integrating and testing the spacecraft’s electrical wiring, or harness, that allows different parts of the observatory to communicate with each other. In addition, the belt provides power and helps the central computer monitor the operation of the observatory through a suite of sensors. This brings the mission closer to studying billions of cosmic objects and solving mysteries such as dark energy after they are released by May 2027.
The flight belt of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is transferred from the mock-up hull to the spacecraft’s flight hull. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
“Just as the nervous system carries signals throughout the human body, the Roman belt connects its components, providing power and commands to every electronic box and gadget,” said Dineen Ferro, Harness by Roman project development manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. green belt. , Maryland. “Without the belt, there is no spacecraft.”
Belt specification and construction
The harness weighs approximately 1,000 lbs., and consists of approximately 32,000 wires and 900 connectors. If the cables were laid end to end, they would stretch for 45 miles. If directed upwards, it would reach eight times the height of Mount Everest.
This video shows the wire assembly of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope transferred from a mockup to the flight hull. Image source: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Reaching this milestone was no small feat. For nearly two years, a team of 11 Goddard technicians spent time at a workbench and perched on ladders, cutting wires to length, meticulously cleaning each component, and connecting everything iteratively.
Prepare for space conditions
The entire belt was built on a life-size observatory before being transported into Goddard’s space environment simulator – a huge thermal vacuum chamber used in this case for “baking”. When observatories like Roman are sent into space, the resulting vacuum and orbital temperatures can cause certain materials to emit harmful fumes, which can then condense in electronics and create problems such as short circuits or deposits on sensitive optics, degrading performance from telescope. Bakeout releases these gases to Earth so that they are not emitted into the spacecraft when it is in space.
The interval of the wire belt as it is hoisted onto the designated transfer cart from the dummy to the flight structure. Image source: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Final assembly steps
Now the engineers will run the belt through the flight structure in Goddard’s large clean room. This continuous process will continue until most of the spacecraft’s components have been assembled. Meanwhile, Goddard’s team will soon begin installing the electronic boxes that will eventually power all of the spacecraft’s science instruments across the beam.
