Basic components for the Roman space telescope of NASA Pass Pass Major Shake Test

The main part of the Roman space telescope Nancy Grace of NASA managed to finish the vibration tests, ensuring that it is resistant to the extreme tremors experienced during the launch. Passing this key step brings Roman closer to Roman to help answer the essential questions about the role of dark energy and other cosmic mysteries.

“The test could be considered powerful as a fairly severe earthquake, but there are key differences,” said Cory Powell, Roman's main structural analyst at the NASA Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Unlike an earthquake, we swept our frequencies one at a time, starting with very low level amplitudes and gradually increasing them while we check All Along the way. It is a very complicated process that takes extraordinary efforts to make safely and effectively. »»

The team simulated the launch conditions as closely as possible. “We carried out the test in a configuration supplied by theft and completed the propulsion tanks of approximately 295 gallons of deionized water to simulate the load of propeling on the spacecraft when launching,” said Joel Proebstle, who led this test, at NASA Goddard. This is part of a series of tests that reach up to 125% of the forces that the observatory will experience.

This step is the last of an intensive test period for the almost complete Roman space telescope, many major parts come together and carry out rapid succession assessments. Novel is currently made up of two major assemblies: the interior, main part (telescope, instrument carrier, two instruments and spaceship) and the external part (Outdoor cannon set, solar solar shield and deployable opening cover).

Now, after having finished the vibration tests, the main part will return to the large white room of Goddard for post-test inspections. They will confirm that everything remains properly aligned and that the high gain antenna can be deployed. The next major evaluation of the main part will involve additional electronics tests, followed by a thermal vacuum test to ensure that the system will work as planned in the hard space environment.

In the meantime, Goddard technicians are also working on the exterior part of the novel. They installed the solar solar test of testing, and this segment then underwent its own test with thermal vacuum, checking it will correctly control the temperatures in the space of space. Now technicians install the flight panels to this outside part of the observatory.
The team is on the right track to link the two main novel assemblies in November, causing a Whole observatory by the end of the year This will then undergo end tests. Roman remains on time of launch by May 2027, the team aimed at the fall of 2026.

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.