Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

James Webb Space Telescope powers on its instruments in Ground Segment Test

Georgina Torbet
By

NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope has run into its share of problems during its development process, but now it has reached a milestone with the completion of the “Ground Segment Test.”

This test involved sending commands to power on the scientific instruments aboard the James Webb for the first time, ensuring that ground control personnel at NASA will be able to control the telescope once it is in orbit.

Recommended Videos

“This was the first time we have done this with both the actual Webb flight hardware and ground system,” Amanda Arvai, deputy division head of mission operations at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Maryland said in a statement.

Related

“We’ve performed pieces of this test as the observatory was being assembled, but this is the first ever, and fully successful, end-to-end operation of the observatory and ground segment. This is a big milestone for the project, and very rewarding to see Webb working as expected.”

Now that the observatory has been completely assembled, Webb teams are running full observatory level tests to ensure it is prepared for the rigors of liftoff.
Now that the observatory has been completely assembled, Webb teams are running full observatory level tests to ensure it is prepared for the rigors of liftoff. NASA/Chris Gunn

The test required over 100 people, most working remotely, and took four days. It consisted of turning on, moving, and operating the telescope’s four instruments: The Near-Infrared Camera, the Near-Infrared Spectrograph, the Mid-Infrared Instrument, and the Fine Guidance Sensor/Near InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph.

“This was also the first time we’ve demonstrated the complete cycle for conducting observations with the observatory’s science instruments,” Arvai said.

“This cycle starts with the creation of an observation plan by the ground system which is uplinked to the observatory by the Flight Operations Team. Webb’s science instruments then performed the observations and the data was transmitted back to the Mission Operations Center in Baltimore, where the science was processed and distributed to scientists.”

The engineers wanted to simulate the communications conditions of the telescope being in space and being controlled from the ground, so they sent the commands via NASA’s Deep Space Network. Once the telescope is in orbit, commands will be relayed using the network which has locations in California, Spain, and Australia to ensure that communication with space-based instruments can continue as the Earth rotates.

Testing of the James Webb will continue with acoustic and sine-vibration testing which simulate the challenging conditions of a launch, and the launch itself is scheduled for October 31, 2021.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
James Webb provides a second view of an exploded star
A new high-definition image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) unveils intricate details of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A), and shows the expanding shell of material slamming into the gas shed by the star before it exploded. The most noticeable colors in Webb’s newest image are clumps of bright orange and light pink that make up the inner shell of the supernova remnant. These tiny knots of gas, comprised of sulfur, oxygen, argon, and neon from the star itself, are only detectable by NIRCam’s exquisite resolution, and give researchers a hint at how the dying star shattered like glass when it exploded.

When massive stars run out of fuel and come to the ends of their lives, their final phase can be a massive explosion called a supernova. Although the bright flash of light from these events quickly fades, other effects are longer-lasting. As the shockwaves from these explosions travel out into space and interact with nearby dust and gas, they can sculpt beautiful objects called supernova remnants.

One such supernova remnant, Cassiopeia A, or Cas A, was recently imaged using the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRCam instrument. Located 11,000 light-years away in the constellation of Cassiopeia, it is thought to be a star that exploded 340 years ago (as seen from Earth) and it is now one of the brightest radio objects in the sky. This view shows the shell of material thrown out by the explosion interacting with the gas that the massive star gave off in its last phases of life.

Read more
James Webb telescope captures a dramatic image of newborn star
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveals intricate details of the Herbig Haro object 797 (HH 797). Herbig-Haro objects are luminous regions surrounding newborn stars (known as protostars), and are formed when stellar winds or jets of gas spewing from these newborn stars form shockwaves colliding with nearby gas and dust at high speeds. HH 797, which dominates the lower half of this image, is located close to the young open star cluster IC 348, which is located near the eastern edge of the Perseus dark cloud complex. The bright infrared objects in the upper portion of the image are thought to host two further protostars. This image was captured with Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam).

A new image of a Herbig-Haro object captured by the James Webb Space Telescope shows the dramatic outflows from a young star. These luminous flares are created when stellar winds shoot off in opposite directions from newborn stars, as the jets of gas slam into nearby dust and gas at tremendous speed. These objects can be huge, up to several light-years across, and they glow brightly in the infrared wavelengths in which James Webb operates.

This image shows Herbig-Haro object HH 797, which is located close to the IC 348 star cluster, and is also nearby to another Herbig-Haro object that Webb captured recently: HH 211.

Read more
James Webb finds that rocky planets could form in extreme radiation environment
This is an artist’s impression of a young star surrounded by a protoplanetary disk in which planets are forming.

It takes a particular confluence of conditions for rocky planets like Earth to form, as not all stars in the universe are conducive to planet formation. Stars give off ultraviolet light, and the hotter the star burns, the more UV light it gives off. This radiation can be so significant that it prevents planets from forming from nearby dust and gas. However, the James Webb Space Telescope recently investigated a disk around a star that seems like it could be forming rocky planets, even though nearby massive stars are pumping out huge amounts of radiation.

The disk of material around the star, called a protoplanetary disk, is located in the Lobster Nebula, one of the most extreme environments in our galaxy. This region hosts massive stars that give off so much radiation that they can eat through a disk in as little as a million years, dispersing the material needed for planets to form. But the recently observed disk, named XUE 1, seems to be an exception.

Read more