The primary structure of NASA’s next flagship
telescope - the Nancy Grace Roman Space telescope
is in the clean room.This marks an
un-official kickoff to the assembly of this widefield telescope.
With the primary structure providing its foundation, Roman will
survey large sweeps of the sky. Unlike the Webb telescope,
which peers with a far narrower focus. These surveys allow
astronomers to understand large scale structures of the Universe
mysterious substances like dark energy and dark matter.
A telescope like this
is assembled bones first, and those bones were
built here at Goddard’s machine shop.
Today we’re preparing to put the spacecraft primary structure onto the skirts.
Next week we’ll be moving the structure and the skirt all the way
up to building 29, up the hill where it will sit on an observatory dolly.
Roman’s initial construction phase
requires readying these large pieces like the primary structure
which houses critical systems like the propulsion system
its power and attitude control and moving them around like puzzle pieces.
Ready? Heave!
This is the Pantheon.
It’s the scaffolding structure that allows people to easily reach
the already tall telescope pieces.
And with the platform in position, the cleanroom is finally ready
for the first central piece of hardware.
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Now that this internal skeleton is
here along with a final hoist,
we can say
that Roman has officially arrived.
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