Genesis of the James Webb Space Telescope Architecture: The Designers' Story

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Bely, Pierre Y., Illingworth, Garth D., Arenberg, Jonathan W., Atkinson, Charles, Burg, Richard, Clampin, Mark, Feinberg, Lee D., Geithner, Paul H., Mather, John C., Menzel, Michael T., Nein, Max, Petro, Larry, Redding, David C., Seery, Bernard D., Stahl, H. Philip, Stiavelli, Massimo, Stockman, Hervey, Willoughby, Scott P.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Bely, Pierre Y.
Illingworth, Garth D.
Arenberg, Jonathan W.
Atkinson, Charles
Burg, Richard
Clampin, Mark
Feinberg, Lee D.
Geithner, Paul H.
Mather, John C.
Menzel, Michael T.
Nein, Max
Petro, Larry
Redding, David C.
Seery, Bernard D.
Stahl, H. Philip
Stiavelli, Massimo
Stockman, Hervey
Willoughby, Scott P.
author_facet Bely, Pierre Y.
Illingworth, Garth D.
Arenberg, Jonathan W.
Atkinson, Charles
Burg, Richard
Clampin, Mark
Feinberg, Lee D.
Geithner, Paul H.
Mather, John C.
Menzel, Michael T.
Nein, Max
Petro, Larry
Redding, David C.
Seery, Bernard D.
Stahl, H. Philip
Stiavelli, Massimo
Stockman, Hervey
Willoughby, Scott P.
contents The James Webb Space Telescope, launched in 2021, is an infrared observatory of novel design: deployable, with active optics, fully open to space for radiative cooling and orbiting the Lagrange point no. 2. This article explains the rationale leading to this specific design and describes the various other architectures that were considered along the way: from a monolithic 10-meter telescope in geosynchronous orbit to a 6-meter one in High Earth Orbit, then a 16-meter observatory on the Moon, a 4- or 6-meter one in an elliptical heliocentric orbit, and a segmented 8-meter one passively cooled to 50 K at L2, which was finally descoped to 6.6 meters. It also addresses the optimization for scientific performance, the challenge of dealing with such an ultra-low operating temperature, cost issues, supporting technology, modifications made during final design and, finally, how the architecture performs on orbit.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_09072
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Genesis of the James Webb Space Telescope Architecture: The Designers' Story
Bely, Pierre Y.
Illingworth, Garth D.
Arenberg, Jonathan W.
Atkinson, Charles
Burg, Richard
Clampin, Mark
Feinberg, Lee D.
Geithner, Paul H.
Mather, John C.
Menzel, Michael T.
Nein, Max
Petro, Larry
Redding, David C.
Seery, Bernard D.
Stahl, H. Philip
Stiavelli, Massimo
Stockman, Hervey
Willoughby, Scott P.
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Space Physics
The James Webb Space Telescope, launched in 2021, is an infrared observatory of novel design: deployable, with active optics, fully open to space for radiative cooling and orbiting the Lagrange point no. 2. This article explains the rationale leading to this specific design and describes the various other architectures that were considered along the way: from a monolithic 10-meter telescope in geosynchronous orbit to a 6-meter one in High Earth Orbit, then a 16-meter observatory on the Moon, a 4- or 6-meter one in an elliptical heliocentric orbit, and a segmented 8-meter one passively cooled to 50 K at L2, which was finally descoped to 6.6 meters. It also addresses the optimization for scientific performance, the challenge of dealing with such an ultra-low operating temperature, cost issues, supporting technology, modifications made during final design and, finally, how the architecture performs on orbit.
title Genesis of the James Webb Space Telescope Architecture: The Designers' Story
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Space Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.09072