NASA: Screws and nuts are poured from the James Webb telescope

Independent analysis and verification of the project of the James Webb space telescope continues, and the specialists who assembled the device seem to have faced a new problem in his recent tests, the SpaceNews portal reported.

At a recent presentation at the meeting of the Space Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, the head of the James Webb Space Telescope program, Greg Robinson, said that "during the last tests of the device design at the Northrop Grumman plant in Southern California," screws and washers "fell out.

Technicians discovered these objects after moving one of the elements of the telescope - a protective solar screen - from the acoustic test chamber to prepare for vibration tests in another chamber.

"At the moment, we believe that all these details - we mean screws and washers - are part of the telescope's sunscreen. Now we understand where they fell from, and then we will solve the problem, "commented Robinson, who also noted that the incident occurred a few days ago, so the team does not yet have exact answers to these questions.

"These are not horrible news, but they are not good," added the deputy head of the directorate of scientific missions at NASA.

This incident, according to Robinson, once again showed the importance of careful checks and tests for the spacecraft before preparing it for launch.

"That's why we're testing and testing. We conducted them now and have now discovered the problem. We will fix everything and completely prepare the device for launch. "

This is not the first problem encountered by the creators of the long-awaited telescope. At the end of March, NASA made an announcement that again upset many scientists, confused them with maps and now will lead to increased spending of budget funds. Naming as a reason a number of technical missteps and errors that could be avoided, the NASA management stated that the launch of the telescope was postponed from 2019 to May 2020. At the same time, the agency attracted an independent group of experts to the project, so that they carried out a thorough analysis of the project and helped prepare the device for a new launch date.

The article is based on materials https://hi-news.ru/technology/nasa-iz-teleskopa-dzhejms-uebb-syplyutsya-vinty-i-gajki.html.