By Ana Verayo, | November 03, 2016
The primary mirror of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope stands in the massive clean room of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. (NASA/Chris Gunn)
NASA's newest and biggest space telescope ever constructed is now complete. The installation of the mirror array of the James Webb Telescope has been finished, and it will now go through a series of technical and mechanical tests before its launch in 2018.
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NASA engineers announced this week that they have completed measurements of the telescope's mirror panels for a very crucial "center of curvature" test. The array's dimensions will now undergo a series of stress tests.
These tests will help ensure that the James Webb Telescope can endure sounds and vibrations in space. If the mirror can withstand rattling and shaking including sudden powerful jolts, the James Webb Telescope will be launched with a spacecraft in October 2018.
Using an interferometer, scientists were able to precisely measure this massive mirror without touching it, as light pulsated off the array's surface was analyzed by a detector.
Data measurements obtained by the interferometer were collected via this digital hologram technique to precisely reproduce the ideal shape of the mirror. This is a modern optical test based on traditional methods to measure mirrors, explains JWST mission scientists Ritva Keski-Kuha from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Mission scientists say that this is the most important test of all, as they have spent the last four years preparing the space telescope's mirror.
The JWST is composed of 18 hexagonal mirrors that will use infrared light to allow scientists to take a peek inside the deeper universe and study the first generation of stars and galaxies including potential habitable exoplanets.
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