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Mar 07, 2024

Wired To Explore: NASA’s 45

By Nora Lowe, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterAugust 27, 2023 The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is a NASA observatory designed to investigate dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.

By Nora Lowe, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterAugust 27, 2023

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is a NASA observatory designed to investigate dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics. Featuring a 2.4-meter primary mirror (similar in size to the Hubble Space Telescope’s), the Roman Telescope will have a field of view over 100 times larger than Hubble, allowing it to capture a more comprehensive picture of the universe and delve deeper into its mysteries. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

NASAEstablished in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. Its vision is "To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity." Its core values are "safety, integrity, teamwork, excellence, and inclusion." NASA conducts research, develops technology and launches missions to explore and study Earth, the solar system, and the universe beyond. It also works to advance the state of knowledge in a wide range of scientific fields, including Earth and space science, planetary science, astrophysics, and heliophysics, and it collaborates with private companies and international partners to achieve its goals." data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]">NASA’s Roman Space TelescopeThe Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (previously known as the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, or WFIRST) is a space telescope that is being developed by NASA. It is named in honor of Nancy Grace Roman, a pioneering astrophysicist who was instrumental in the development of the Hubble Space Telescope. The Roman Space Telescope is designed to study a wide range of cosmic phenomena, including the expansion of the universe, the formation and evolution of galaxies, and the search for exoplanets. It will be equipped with a wide-field camera that will allow it to survey a large portion of the sky and study objects in the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to be launched in the mid-2020s." data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]">Roman Space Telescope team is integrating a complex electrical harness, crucial for the spacecraft’s communication and power. After a detailed two-year construction and a preparatory “bakeout” process, assembly into the spacecraft is ongoing, with future installations planned for power components.

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has begun integrating and testing the spacecraft’s electrical cabling, or harness, which enables different parts of the observatory to communicate with one another. Additionally, the harness provides power and helps the central computer monitor the observatory’s function via an array of sensors. This brings the mission a step closer to surveying billions of cosmic objects and untangling mysteries like dark energy following its launch by May 2027.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s flight harness is transferred from the mock-up structure to the spacecraft flight structure. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn

“Just as the nervous system carries signals throughout the human body, Roman’s harness connects its components, providing both power and commands to each electronic box and instrument,” said Deneen Ferro, the Roman harness project development lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Without a harness, there is no spacecraft.”

Weighing around 1,000 pounds, the harness is made up of approximately 32,000 wires and 900 connectors. If the wires were laid out end-to-end, they would span 45 miles. Directed upward, they would reach eight times higher than the peak of Mount Everest.

This video shows the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s wire harness being transferred from a mockup to the flight structure. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Achieving this milestone was no small task. Over the course of about two years, a team of 11 Goddard technicians spent time at the workbench and perched on ladders, cutting wire to length, meticulously cleaning each component, and repeatedly connecting everything together.

The entire harness was built on an observatory mock-up structure before being transported to Goddard’s Space Environment Simulator – a massive thermal vacuum chamber used in this case for “bakeout.” When observatories like Roman are sent to space, the resulting vacuum and orbital temperatures can cause certain materials to release harmful vapors, which can then condense within electronics and create problems like short circuits or deposits on sensitive optics, degrading the telescope’s performance. Bakeout releases these gases on Earth so they aren’t emitted inside the spacecraft when in space.

Timelapse of the wire harness as it is lifted on its custom transport basket from the mock primary structure to the flight structure. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Now, engineers will weave the harness through the flight structure in Goddard’s big clean room. This ongoing process will continue until most of the spacecraft components are assembled. In the meantime, the Goddard team will soon begin installing electronics boxes that will eventually provide power via the harness to all the spacecraft’s science instruments.