A serious part of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Area Telescope simply took a spin on the centrifuge at NASA’s Goddard Area Flight Heart in Greenbelt, Maryland. Referred to as the Outer Barrel Meeting, this piece of the observatory is designed to maintain the telescope at a secure temperature and defend it from stray gentle.

The 2-part spin take a look at came about in a big, spherical take a look at chamber. Stretching throughout the room, a 600,000-pound (272,000-kilogram) metal arm extends from an enormous rotating bearing within the heart of the ground.

The take a look at itself is sort of a refined model of a well-liked carnival attraction, designed to use centrifugal pressure to the rider — on this case, the outer masking for Roman’s telescope. It spun as much as 18.4 rotations per minute. That won’t sound like a lot, but it surely generated pressure equal to only over seven occasions Earth’s gravity, or 7 g, and despatched the meeting whipping round at 80 miles per hour.

“We couldn’t take a look at your entire Outer Barrel Meeting within the centrifuge in a single piece as a result of it’s too giant to slot in the room,” stated Jay Parker, product design lead for the meeting at Goddard. The construction stands about 17 ft (5 meters) tall and is about 13.5 ft (4 meters) huge. “It’s designed a bit like a home on stilts, so we examined the ‘home’ and ‘stilts’ individually.”

The “stilts” went first. Technically known as the elephant stand due to its similarity to constructions utilized in circuses, this a part of the meeting is designed to encompass Roman’s Huge Subject Instrument and Coronagraph Instrument like scaffolding. It connects the higher portion of the Outer Barrel Meeting to the spacecraft bus, which can maneuver the observatory to its place in area and assist it whereas there. The elephant stand was examined with weights hooked up to it to simulate the remainder of the meeting’s mass.

Subsequent, the group examined the “home” — the shell and a connecting ring that encompass the telescope. These components of the meeting will in the end be fitted with heaters to assist make sure the telescope’s mirrors received’t expertise huge temperature swings, which make supplies increase and contract.

To additional defend in opposition to temperature fluctuations, the Outer Barrel Meeting is principally fabricated from two varieties of carbon fibers combined with bolstered plastic and related with titanium finish fittings. These supplies are each stiff (in order that they received’t warp or flex throughout temperature swings) and light-weight (lowering launch calls for).

In case you might peel again the aspect of the higher portion –– the home’s “siding” –– you’d see one other weight-reducing measure. Between internal and outer panels, the fabric is structured like honeycomb. This sample could be very robust and lowers weight by hollowing out parts of the inside.

Designed at Goddard and constructed by Utilized Composites in Los Alamitos, California, Roman’s Outer Barrel Meeting was delivered in items after which put collectively in a sequence of crane lifts in Goddard’s largest clear room. It was partially disassembled for centrifuge testing, however will now be put again collectively and built-in with Roman’s photo voltaic panels and Deployable Aperture Cowl on the finish of the yr.

In 2025, these freshly built-in elements will undergo thermal vacuum testing collectively to make sure they are going to face up to the temperature and strain atmosphere of area. Then they’ll transfer to a shake take a look at to ensure they are going to maintain up in opposition to the vibrations they’ll expertise throughout launch. Towards the tip of subsequent yr, they are going to be built-in with remainder of the observatory.

To nearly tour an interactive model of the telescope, go to:

The Nancy Grace Roman Area Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Area Flight Heart in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Area Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science group comprising scientists from numerous analysis establishments. The first industrial companions are BAE Methods, Inc in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Applied sciences in Rochester, New York; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.

By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Area Flight Heart, Greenbelt, Md.

​​Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Area Flight Heart
301-286-1940