TELESCOPE James Webb has crossed an important milestone in his quest to describe the first shining stars in the universe.
Telescope has completed the deployment of a giant kite-shaped sun shield at the space observatory.
Only with a barrier the size of a tennis court would Webb have the sensitivity to detect signals coming from the most distant objects in the Universe.
Now the researchers will concentrate solely on dismantling the telescope’s mirrors, the largest of which are up to 6.5m wide.
The deployment of the five-membrane sun shield is an achievement for the engineering team at the US space agency (Nasa) and American aerospace manufacturer Northrop Grumman.
The reason, many doubt the design that includes so many motors, gears, pulleys and cables.
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But years of testing on full-scale and sub-scale models paid off as the controllers separated the different protective layers and then tightened them.
(DRM)
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