The newest video in the “Behind the Webb” series called “Strong and Steady,” takes an inside look at one of the special materials used to build NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
In “Strong and Steady,” viewers go to Airbus Defense and Space (formerly known as Astrium) in Ottobrunn, Germany. The episode goes on the production journey and explains about how silicon carbide powder is made into a material used in the manufacture of the Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument that will fly aboard the Webb telescope. NIRSpec is a powerful instrument that will record the spectra of light from distant objects.
Viewers of “Strong and Steady” will get a sense of how long it takes for the different phases of the process to convert the silicon carbide from powder to the final product.
“[Silicon carbide] is two times more stiff than steel and five times more stiff than aluminum,” said Gunther Kling, Optical Systems Major Instrument Components at Airbus Defense and Space, Germany. “Silicon carbide is a ceramic material and it offers special properties to fulfill the mission of NIRSPEC.”
The advantages of using silicon carbide is that it is a lightweight design and provides high stability. That’s important because the telescope needs to hold steady to align the optics and get a clear picture of the object Webb observes.
The silicon carbide is manufactured at Boostec, a company that specializes in space optics in Bazet, near Toulouse, France. “Silicon carbide is a synthetic material made from the chemical reaction at high temperature of silica sand and carbon,” said Michel Bougoin, Space Projects Manager at Boostec.
Viewers will get a look at silicon carbide and learn what it feels like, how long it takes to make, how it goes from a powder to a solid.
The video series takes viewers behind the scenes to understand more about the Webb telescope, the world’s next-generation space observatory and successor to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Designed to be the most powerful space telescope ever built, Webb will observe the most distant objects in the universe, provide images of the first galaxies formed and study newly discovered planets around distant stars.
The Webb telescope is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
The 5 minute and 24 second video was produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, which conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc. in Washington. The “Behind the Webb” video series is available in HQ, large and small Quicktime formats, HD, large and small WMV formats, and HD, large and small Xvid formats.
For more information about the Webb telescope, visit: www.jwst.nasa.gov or www.nasa.gov/webb