“NASA Begins Integration of the Roman Telescope’s Nervous System”. daily menu

the a pot She began integrating and testing the electrical wiring, or harness, of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which allows different parts of the observatory to communicate with each other.

In addition, the belt saves energy and It helps the central computer monitor the operation of the observatory through a series of sensors. This brings the mission one step closer to studying billions of cosmic objects and uncovering secrets such as dark energy when it is launched in May 2027.

“Just as the nervous system carries signals throughout the human body, the Roman tool connects its components, providing power and commands to every box and electronic gadget,” Deneen Ferro, lead project development for the Roman belts, said in a statement. center. “There is no belt, no spaceship.”

The harness weighs about 450 kilograms and is made up of about 32,000 wires and 900 conductors. If the cables were laid end to end, they would stretch for 72 kilometres. If directed upwards, it would reach eight times the height of Mount Everest.

to and manufactured in about two years. A team of 11 Goddard technicians spent time on the bench and on the ladders, cutting wires to length, meticulously cleaning each component, and connecting everything again and again.

The entire belt was built on the structure of a model observatory before being moved into Goddard’s Space Environment Simulator, a huge thermal vacuum chamber used in this case for baking.

When observatories like Roman are sent into space, the resulting vacuum and orbital temperatures can cause certain materials to release harmful fumes, which can then condense inside the electronics and create problems such as short circuits or deposits on sensitive optics, degrading telescope performance. . Bakeout releases these gases to the ground so that they are not emitted into the spacecraft when it is in space.

Now, engineers will weave the belt through the flight structure in Goddard’s large clean room. This continuous process will continue until most of the spacecraft’s components have been assembled. Meanwhile, Goddard’s team will soon begin installing the electronic boxes that will eventually provide power through the belt for all of the spacecraft’s science instruments.

Expected to be launched in 2027, it is a next-generation observatory that will stretch across the vast expanses of space and time to study the infrared world. Thanks to the mission’s huge field of view and high scanning speeds, astronomers will be able to observe planets in the thousands, galaxies in the millions and stars in the billions.

Astronomers hope so The novel reveals a large number of rocky worlds within and beyond the region where liquid water could exist. The mission notes will also help shed light on two of the cosm’s biggest mysteries: dark energy and dark matter.