US-based Raytheon has concluded a factory acceptance test of the flight operations system for Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), at its facility in Aurora, Colorado.
During the test, more than 800 requirements were verified on the JWST ground control system.
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Featuring seven times the light-collecting power of its predecessor, the JWST will be able to collect data and images of deep-space dust clouds, stars and galaxies.
Equipped with a 6.5m primary mirror, JWST will study every phase in the history of the universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the big bang, to the formation of solar systems.
Scheduled to be launched aboard an Ariane 5 rocket by next year, JWST will also be able to take observations in the infrared spectrum to penetrate cosmic dust to reveal the universe's first galaxies, as well as observe newly forming planetary systems.
Raytheon navigation and environmental solutions vice-president Matt Gilligan said: “The JWST flight operations system is our latest generation of mission management and command and control capabilities for satellite operations.
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By GlobalData“Our ground control system will download data from space and fly the telescope as it penetrates through cosmic dust to unlock the universe's secrets like never before.”
The company and the Space Telescope Science Institute have jointly installed the JWST ground control system on the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, US.
