Accident in space: Meteor fragment hits space telescope
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In the statement made by NASA, it was stated that the James Webb Space Telescope received micro meteor impacts on May 23-25, but still exceeded all mission requirements after initial evaluations.
The statement said such events are expected and inevitable, but the latest event is larger than previous modeling and beyond what the team could test in the field.
Paul Geithner, an official at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, stated that James Webb was designed to enable him to perform his ambitious science mission even after many years in space, adding, “Webb’s ability to detect and adjust mirror positions provides partial correction for the result of impacts. ” said.
Lee Feinberg, director of the Webb Optical Telescope unit, said: “We’ve had four small, measurable micrometeor impacts since launch, which is consistent with expectations. The recent impact was larger than we had anticipated.” he said.
It has been reported that the micro-meteor impacts did not cause any change in James Webb’s program of operations.
NASA launched the world’s largest and most advanced space telescope, James Webb, into space on December 25, 2021.
The product of NASA’s collaboration with the European and Canadian space agencies, Webb is seen as the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope, which is the largest and most powerful but 31 years old, approaching the end of its working life.
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