This will be a nail biter. It is a sort of robotic origami that will unfold 1.5 million km out in space.
LC On Sunday, December 5, 2021 at 10:22:19 AM UTC-6 [email protected] wrote: > Two weeks from Wednesday the long delayed 10 billion dollar James Webb > telescope will finally be launched that could revolutionize our > understanding of the universe; because native Hawaiian barbarians destroyed > the 30 meter telescope which should've become operational several years ago > but now never will, Web will be the first of a new generation of huge super > sophisticated observatories. But I've got my fingers crossed, and the > terror won't stop with a successful launch but will continue for the next > 29 days. I'm especially worried about the delicate 5 layered 70 foot by 47 > foot sunshield required to keep the telescope cold so it can detect the > infrared light it was designed to find. Something that big obviously can't > fit into the nosecone of a rocket so it must be tightly folded up origami > style and be unfurled in space, but to do that 8 motors, 140 actuators, 150 > latches, and 400 pulleys must behave exactly as they were designed to and > do so in precise synchronization or the sunshield will tear and the entire > project will fail. And, because it will not be in low earth orbit but at > the Lagrange-2 point more than 900,000 miles from Earth, there is no > possibility of an astronaut repair mission as happened with the Hubble > telescope if something goes wrong. After 29 days the major dangers will be > behind us but it will still take another 5 months for the telescope to cool > down and be properly aligned before it can start doing any science. > > John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis > <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis> > > twj > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/47174519-0577-4c16-ae05-c51e749b9f85n%40googlegroups.com.
