Engineers and test technicians load shiny test coupons inside one of the vacuum chambers in the Environmental Test Facility at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The coupons are made of the same material that will be used to fabricate the the sunshield that will protect NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope from heat that might interfere with the operation of its mirrors and infrared sensors. During a series of three tests, coupons were exposed to extreme hot and cold temperature over a period of several weeks. This simulated the conditions where the James Webb Space Telescope sunshield will operate a million miles from Earth. The first set of coupons has already successfully completed stress and structural analysis by ManTech International Corporation, the Huntsville company that is designing and fabricating the sunshields.
NASA\MSFC\Emmett Given
2012-11-01 12:19:49
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