The final segment of the flight primary mirror for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has completed the manufacturing process and been delivered for grinding and polishing, a major milestone achieved by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation and its subcontractors.
The beryllium mirror segment, one of 18 segments that comprise the telescope's 6.6-meter primary mirror, was delivered from Axsys Technologies Inc. in
"We are now moving into a new phase on JWST following 17 months in which the telescope has achieved all testing milestones required for Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6, including Wavefront Sensing and Control met by Ball Aerospace last month," said David L. Taylor, president and chief executive officer of Ball Aerospace.
One of the lightest of all metals, beryllium has a demonstrated track record of performing on space telescopes at cryogenic temperatures, needed for JWST's infrared observations. Each of the 18 hexagonal-shaped mirror segments measures a little more than 1.3 meters across, and weighs approximately 20 kilograms (46 pounds) after light-weighting. The completed JWST optics will have more than nine times the effective light-collecting area of the Hubble Space Telescope's optics, yet the JWST primary mirror will weigh only about half as much as Hubble's.
Ball Aerospace is the principal optical subcontractor for the JWST program, led by prime contractor Northrop Grumman Space Technology, under a contract from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, in
Upon successful launch in 2013, JWST will study the first stars and galaxies following the Big Bang, the formation of planetary systems, and feature deep imaging and multi-object spectroscopy in the near and mid-infrared portions of the spectrum.
Ball Aerospace & Technologies supports critical missions of important national agencies such as the Department of Defense, NASA, NOAA and other
