Testing the Fold: The JWST's Sunshield

First Of Five Membranes Installed On The Space Telescope Mockup Engineers got a first-hand look at how the James Webb Space Telescope's sunshield would fold around the observatory while stored in the rocket that would take it to its orbit a million miles from Earth. Engineers at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems in Redondo Beach, CA, installed the first of five template sunshield membranes on a Webb telescope mock-up. The mock-up is a full-scale structural facsimile of the real observatory.

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