Things are looking well for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The project was first thought of back in 1996 as the Next Generation Space Telescope and this ambitious project had a very long and difficult road to travel.
NASA announced that the telescope completed the final functional performance tests. Internal electronics are all functions and its four instruments are receiving and sending data as they should.
The observatory will be far beyond the orbit of the Moon. So once it is up there, it will be on its own. So everything has to be working right from the get-go.The testing ran for 17 days making sure that everything was running smoothly. Each electrical box on the telescope has two sides, a crucial redundancy to prepare for the unexpected.
“It’s been amazing to witness the level of expertise, commitment, and collaboration across the team during this important milestone,” Jennifer Love-Pruitt, Northrop Grumman’s electrical vehicle engineering lead on the Webb observatory, said in a statement. “It’s definitely a proud moment because we demonstrated Webb’s electrical readiness. The successful completion of this test also means we are ready to move forward toward launch and on-orbit operations.”
If everything runs according to plan, JWST will launch on October 31, 2021.
