NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Team Installs Observatory’s Solar Panels
On June 14 and 16, the technicians installed solar panels on the Roman space telescope of Nancy Grace of NASA, one of the last stages of the observatory assembly. Collectively called the solar solar shield, these panels will feed and shade it the observatory, allowing all the observations of the mission and will help the instruments in the fresh.
“At this stage, the observatory is around 90%complete,” said Jack Marshall, the lead in the Sun Sun Shield solar shield at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We just need to join two great assemblies, then we will direct the whole Roman observatory through a series of tests. We are currently on the right track for the launch several months earlier than the date promised at the latest in May 2027. ” The team worked at the launch in the fall of 2026.
The solar solar shield is made up of six panels, each covered with solar cells. The two central panels will remain attached to the assembly of the outside barrel (the Observatory’s Outdoor Coque) while the other four will be deployed once Roman is in space, swing to align with the central panels.
The panels will pass the entire mission confronted in the sun to provide a constant food for the electronics of the observatory. This orientation will also shade a large part of the observatory and will help keep the instruments fresh, which is essential for an infrared observatory. Since the infrared light is detectable in the form of heat, excessive heat of the components of the detectors’ saturation of the detectors and would effectively blind the telescope.
“Now that the panels have been installed, the outside part of the Roman observatory is over,” said Aaron Vigil de Goddard, a mechanical engineer working on the table. Then, the technicians will test the deployment of solar panels and the “visor” of the observatory (the opening coverage deployable). The team also tests the main part of the observatory, assessing electronics and performing a thermal vacuum test to ensure that the system works as expected in the severe space environment.
This will keep the project on the right track to connect the novel’s interior and external segments in November, which led to an entire observatory by the end of the year which can then undergo pre-launch tests.
To practically visit an interactive version of the telescope, visit: https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/interactive/
Download the high -resolution video and images of the NASA scientific visualization studio
The Roman Spatial Telescope of Nancy Grace is managed at the Goddard Space Flight Center in NASA in Greenbelt, Maryland, with the participation of the NASA jet propulsion laboratory in Southern California; Caltech / Ipac in Pasadena, California; The Institute of Sciences of the Space Telescope in Baltimore; And a scientific team including scientists from various research institutions. The main industrial partners are BAE Systems Inc. in Boulder, Colorado; L3harris Technologies in Rochester, New York; And Teledyne Scientific & Imaging at Thousand Oaks, California.
By Ashley Balzer
Goddard Space Flight Center of NASAGreenbelt, md.
