The layers, which are as thin as a human hair, are now fully unfolded and stretched so that they are several tens of centimeters apart. Each layer is colder than the previous one and the layer facing the sun can warm up to 125 degrees while the layer furthest from it will experience a temperature of -235 degrees Celsius.
Hundreds of pulleys, many meters of cable and several motors were used to unfold the layers.
On Monday the first three layers were unfolded and stretched, Tuesday morning the last two. The entire operation took a day and a half, about half the time expected.
NASA streamed the procedure live from the control room in Baltimore on the Internet. “The atmosphere was hard to describe, it was an incredible moment,” said Hillary Stock, deployment director at Northrop Grumman, NASA’s partner in developing the shield. “There was a lot of joy, a lot of relief. Everything went smoothly.”
A video from NASA (English) about the deployment of the heat shield and what has still been deployed and what still needs to be done:
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