The goal is to make sure the space telescope, which is set to launch in 2018 and be the eventual successor to the immensely successful Hubble Space Telescope, will be fully operational when it reaches its freezing destination 1 million miles from Earth.
NASA researchers will be watching especially close to see how the telescope performs in the newly renovated space simulating Chamber A at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The vacuum chamber is the same place where the Apollo spacecraft were tested.
Moving even a test part of what NASA said is the largest and most powerful space telescope ever built is no small feat. With the 3,000-pound Pathfinder Backplane in a clean room at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, the team glided in a shipping container on air pads, a move NASA likened to a puck on an air hockey table.Read More
