The long process of getting the JamesWebbSpaceTelescope ready for science operations continues, with the ongoing alignment of three of its instruments.
Webb recently reached the major milestone of aligning its mirrors with its NIRCam instrument, in a successful step that promises great results to come.
Now, the Webb team is working on aligning two more of the instruments — the Near-Infrared Slitless Spectrograph and Near-Infrared Spectrometer — as well as the guider, called the Fine Guidance Sensor . This process is expected to take around six weeks and will ensure that all of the instruments can work together. Along with NIRCam, these comprise Webb’s near-infrared instruments.
While the three near-infrared instruments are passively cooled — meaning that heat is dispersed from the telescope and into space using design elements like heat sinks which require no power — the fourth instrument, MIRI, works in the mid-infrared wavelength and requires active cooling.
In addition to this cooling system, MIRI is also fitted with heaters so that the cooldown process can be carefully managed to prevent ice from forming on the components. The heaters will shortly be turned off, allowing the cooling system to bring the instrument down to its operating temperature. With the cooling of MIRI underway, it will take a few weeks until the final instrument gets cool enough to be ready for alignment. Then, with all four of the instruments aligned, the Webb team can move onto the next phase of commissioning — optical stability tests and instrument performance measurement — to get the telescope ready for science operations this summer.
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