The ISIM structure is inspected inside NASA’s Space Environment Simulator at the Goddard Space Flight Center after enduring weeks of temperatures less than minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit; the same temperature it will see for the duration of its mission inside the James Webb Space Telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a large, infrared-optimized space telescope, scheduled for launch in 2014. JWST will find the first galaxies that formed in the early Universe, connecting the Big Bang to our own Milky Way Galaxy. JWST will peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems,connecting the Milky Way to our own Solar System. JWST’s instruments will be designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range. JWST will have a large mirror, 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) in diameter and a sunshield the size of a tennis court. Both the mirror and sunshade won’t fit onto the rocket fully open, so both will fold up and open once JWST is in outer space. JWST will reside in an orbit about 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from the Earth. The James Webb Space Telescope was named after a former NASA Administrator.

Watch the Webb In Progress on the NASA “Webb-cam”! http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/webcam.html

Currently on The Webcam Page

The Near-InfraRed Camera Engineering Test Unit (NIRCam ETU), the Near-InfRared Spectrograph Engineering Test Unit (NIRSpec ETU), and the Mid-InfraRed Instrument Structural Thermal Model (MIRI STM) are currently in the cleanroom. They are visible near the left side of the below image. The NIRCam ETU will go through electrical interface checks as well as mechanical fit checks. The NIR Spec ETU will undergo a series of electrical tests to confirm its operation as well as mechanical interface checks with the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) Structure. The MIRI STM serves as the engineering test unit for MIRI and will be integrated into the ISIM Structure.

(Left Side of the Clean-Room)

The ISIM Structure, the large, black, square, “latticed” structure was temporarily moved out of the cleanroom and into Cryo Set Testing, but now it is back, as you can see on the webcam. The testing it underwent was designed to observe the ISIM structure with high precision photogrammetry equipment as it is cooled from room temperature (20 C or 68 F) to -233 C (-388F) and ensure the amount the structure shrinks is within the allowable and predicted bounds. The test cycles between these two temperatures five times to show that the structure behaves in a repeatable fashion over these cycles. The ISIM Structure will contain all of the Webb’s instruments and will sit right behind the primary mirror. Also in the cleanroom right now is the OSIM (Optical Test Element Simulator), visible in the lower right (along with part of the balcony the camera is on) below. This equipment provides a high fidelity representation of the Webb telescope section and is used for performing detail optical testing of the ISIM and its instruments.

(Right side of the Clean-Room)

In the long run, watch for this long and strong arm to become the signature apparatus of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory. After landing in August 2012, the mission will rely on it for repeated research activities. One set of moves crucial to the mission’s success has never been tried before on Mars: pulling pulverized samples from the interior of Martian rocks and placing them into laboratory instruments inside the rover. Engineers and technicians are putting the arm through a range of motions this month in the clean room where Curiosity is being assembled and tested at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

“We’re fine-tuning the ability to make the arm go exactly where we want it to go,” said JPL’s Brett Kennedy, cognizant engineer for the robotic arm. “Next, we’ll start pushing on things with the arm.”

The arm can extend about 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) from the front of the rover body. Still to be added: the turret at the end that holds a percussive drill and other tools weighing a total of about 33 kilograms (73 pounds).

“This arm is strong, but still needs to move accurately enough to drop an aspirin tablet into a thimble,” Kennedy said.

The titanium arm has two joints at the shoulder, one at the elbow and two at the wrist. Each joint moves with a cold-tolerant actuator, custom-built for the mission. The tools to be wielded by the arm include a magnifying-lens camera; an element-identifying spectrometer; a rock brush; and mechanisms for scooping, sieving and portioning samples. The mission is designed to operate on Mars for a full Martian year, which equals about two Earth years. MDA Information Systems Inc.’s Space Division in Pasadena built and tested the arm, incorporating actuators from Aeroflex Corp., Plainview, N.Y. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For more information about the mission, visit http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ . (source www.jpl.nasa.gov)

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V with NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory launches from its Space Launch Complex-41launch pad at 10:23 a.m. EST here today. SDO is the first satellite of NASA’s Living with a Star (LWS) program. Its purpose isto examine the sun, the source of all space weather. Photo by Pat Corkery, United Launch Alliance.

Cape Canaveral, Fla., (Feb. 11, 2010) – United Launch Alliance successfully launched NASA’s latest scientific exploration mission, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), aboard an Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at 10:23 a.m.EST today. This was ULA’s first launch of 2010 and marked the 100th use of the commercial Atlas Centaur launch vehiclesince its first launch on July 29, 1990. The first commercial launch was NASA’s Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite (CRRES) spacecraft.

“ULA is extremely proud to be a part of the SDO mission, NASA’s first satellite launch of its ‘Living with a Star’ program,” saidMark Wilkins, ULA Vice President, Atlas Product Line. “This launch culminates years of hard work by our NASA customer andour ULA launch team. It’s appropriate that our 100th use of a commercial Atlas Centaur was for a NASA mission since Centaur was originally developed for NASA’s lunar program.”

The Centaur upper stage began launching as a NASA vehicle on top of Atlas in 1962 to land surveyor spacecraft on the Moon in preparation for manned landings by Apollo. As the original government-managed Atlas Centaur program was nearing its end, it was resurrected as a commercial vehicle in the late 1980s by General Dynamics. Upgraded versions of

Atlas Centaur have been flying missions since 1990, with the SDO launch marking its 100th flight. Centaur is probably most famous for its role in NASA’s recent Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LRO/LCROSS) mission where it crashed into the Moon in October 2009 to help NASA confirm the presence of water at the Moon’s South Pole.

“Our Atlas launches of the past two decades would not be the success they were without the Centaur upper stage conducting its mission flawlessly,” Wilkins said. “We look forward to the next 100 Centaur missions.”

The SDO mission was launched aboard an Atlas V 401 configuration and it used a single common core booster poweredby the RD-180 engine.

ULA’s next launch is the NASA/NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite P (GOES P) mission, which will belaunched aboard a Delta IV rocket on behalf of Boeing Launch Services. The launch is scheduled for Mar. 1, 6:19 p.m. EST,from Space Launch Complex-37 here. (source ulalaunch.com)