The SCE testing also included the integration of the SCE and Optical Telescope Element/Integrated Science Instrument Module (OTIS).
A series of post-test check outs and deployments were conducted, including exercising the deployable tower assembly (DTA) and the five-layer sunshield, among others. The DTA is a critical structure that stows the OTIS to fit into the rocket fairing.
Scott Willoughby, vice president and program manager, JWST, Northrop Grumman, said, "The Northrop Grumman and NASA team has further validated that the James Webb Space Telescope can communicate and deploy as we have rehearsed in simulations, after launch."
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When deployed, the DTA separates the OTIS four feet from the SCE, providing thermal separation and room to release the sunshield membrane covers. During these tests, Webb’s five-layer sunshield was released and tensioned, allowing a never-before seen view of the observatory.
A series of discrete deployments gave the sunshield its tennis-court sized length: the unitised pallet structures were released, the nested mid-booms extended and 90 cables were tensioned to deploy all five layers of sunshield membranes.
"This milestone has given us an unprecedented and breathtaking view of the near-fully deployed observatory. I am looking forward to the team’s continued achievements as we march down our path towards launch and mission success," Willoughby added.
The fully assembled observatory will complete the final steps of post-integration testing in preparation for its observatory level acoustic and sine vibration environmental testing next year.
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The JWST will be the world’s premier space science observatory when it launches in 2021. It will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of the universe and our place in it.
Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
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