Space Cakes – James Webb Space Telescope edition…

• By Maggie Masetti
• December 19, 2014
• Comments Off on Space Cakes – James Webb Space Telescope edition…

We’ve somehow managed to post about a variety of astronomical and satellite-oriented cakes on this blog. There was Swift’s 10th birthday, and Fermi’s 5th birthday – and then I stumbled across these photos from 2012 of a James Webb Space Telescope cake and had to share.

This cake was made to celebrate the completion of the construction around NASA Johnson’s giant Chamber A – a test chamber used for Apollo that was all kitted out with a clean tent and testing equipment for JWST. The cake was made by the wife of one of the engineers in the Crew and Thermal Systems Division.

Credit: NASA JSC/Trish Petete

Here, JSC Project Manager, Mary Cerimele, cuts into the cake.

redit: NASA JSC/Trish Petete

Want to see what Chamber A looks like?

Credit: NASA

The view from inside:

Credit: NASA Johnson

This is what JWST will look like inside Chamber A:

Credit: NASA Johnson

We have hardware headed there shortly. The test version of JWST’s backplane, which is the piece that the mirrors are mounted to, has had two test mirrors and our spare secondary placed on it. It will go to Chamber A to be cryogenically tested in late winter. The flight mirrors and flight backplane will be making the same journey – the mirrors will be mounted to it at Goddard and then it will go to Johnson for cryotesting!

We’ll have all the latest news (and maybe cake!), so check back!