Silver and Gold

• By Maggie Masetti
• October 17, 2014
• 2 Comments

The other big news for the James Webb Space Telescope is the tests they are doing, mounting mirrors onto the test version of the structure that will secure them to the telescope.

This structure is called the backplane, and it’s like the spine of the spacecraft. The test version of it arrived not long ago. And since then, they have been working hard at installing our two test mirrors onto it, in practice for when it comes time to install the flight mirrors on to the flight backplane.

Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn

Beautiful, no? This JWST Optical Engineer Larkin Carey with the Engineering Design Unit (EDU) mirror (which is polished and gold-coated), and the uncoated, silver C7 flight spare mirror segment.

How did those mirrors get placed on the backplane? Via this robot arm! Here’s a photo of the mirror (with protective cover) sitting on the arm.

Credit: Maggie Masetti

Credit: Maggie Masetti

What comes next? The test backplane and test mirrors go off to NASA Johnson to be cryogenically tested in this huge vacuum chamber once used for Apollo.

Credit: NASA/JSC