Space rock hits James Webb Telescope again

What are the chances?
Pretty dang good apparently!

Our beloved James Webb Telescope suffered a blow back in May by some space debris.
The meteorite knocked one of the gold plated mirrors out of alignment, but luckily didn’t send the telescope itself out of its orbit.

This isn’t even the first one to hit it. NASA claims that 5 pieces of rock have struck the telescope since its launch in December.
Hopefully the dang thing took its licks for being the new guy up there and no further impacts will happen.

I have high hopes for this telescope.


Article from CBC

a reply to: Macenroe82

Yeah, it's not like they can call up ''Pops Repair Service'' to send a guy out.

Well, when you are such a big target, you are bound to get hit more often.

I am pretty sure this is the largest spacecraft to be beyond low earth orbit. I don't think it is going to have any where near the life span of the Hubble.

This doesn't bode well for its lifespan.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

Lol nope. One shot, one chance and it’s life span depends exclusively on the heavens.

originally posted by: VierEyes
This doesn't bode well for its lifespan.

Another five years and it will probably be space junk floating around up there. Hope they get some good pictures before it gets ruined. I suppose that what pictures it get will wind up costing about five grand a picture if it keeps getting whacked out there.

I had always thought the direction to go in was to build a "virtual telescope" comprised of many smaller independent mirrors, spaced a distance apart and synchronized, to act as one giant telescope.

The European Space Agency was working on this a few years back.

With such a design, you don't have one, monolithic object, rather many smaller ones spaced apart (i.e. less target surface area for space debris). And if one mirror is shot, you bring it out of sync and put a new one it's place, rather than with the James Webb, hitting it is one shot one kill.

originally posted by: VierEyes
This doesn't bode well for its lifespan.

Yes.

At least Hubble had a hat.

originally posted by: nerbot

originally posted by: VierEyes
This doesn't bode well for its lifespan.

Yes.

At least Hubble had a hat.

And wears glasses…

a reply to: Macenroe82

I would guess the chances of that being human space junk is pretty high.

a reply to: Macenroe82

Webb was hit by Micro meteoroids which was expected , it shouldn't cause any problems but as time goes by and Webb receives more hits it could turn into a problem.

July 12th we'll get the first colour pictures.

Sounds like the aliens are channeling Alec Baldwin and don't like all the paparazzi taking pictures

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: Macenroe82

Webb was hit by Micro meteoroids which was expected , it shouldn't cause any problems but as time goes by and Webb receives more hits it could turn into a problem.

July 12th we'll get the first colour pictures.

This latest one hit a mirror. Sort of crucial to the mission.

It's going to end up being a multi-billion dollar boondoggle if this persists.

I don´t see how anything in space doesn´t stand a good chance of getting hit by something.

a reply to: VierEyes

If we send anything into space it's going to get hit all we can do is try to mitigate the inevitable.

Micrometeoroid strikes are an unavoidable aspect of operating any spacecraft, which routinely sustain many impacts over the course of long and productive science missions in space. Between May 23 and 25, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope sustained an impact to one of its primary mirror segments. After initial assessments, the team found the telescope is still performing at a level that exceeds all mission requirements despite a marginally detectable effect in the data.

Webb’s mirror was engineered to withstand bombardment from the micrometeoroid environment at its orbit around Sun-Earth L2 of dust-sized particles flying at extreme velocities. While the telescope was being built, engineers used a mixture of simulations and actual test impacts on mirror samples to get a clearer idea of how to fortify the observatory for operation in orbit. This most recent impact was larger than was modeled, and beyond what the team could have tested on the ground.
blogs.nasa.gov...

a reply to: 2Faced

That just made me think about when I was in grade school and we watch a doc on the making of the Hubble, I'll never forget how big that lens was and that how if any one or anything touched it, it was ruined and they had to make a new one.

This was maybe around 2001.

a reply to: gortex

One of the articles I read earlier had a graphic of the Hubble and showed how it looks after all these years in a considerably harsher environment. It looked pretty rough yet somehow kept on ticking along. Obviously, it's not feasible to repair the JWST currently, but at some point, it will be possible. Hopefully, that happens within the expected lifespan of the telescope; that being said, they over-engineer the bejeezus out of it and most NASA objects, for that matter, so it can take a bit of a beating for a while before any real issues arise.

Maybe they could have put some sensors on it with propellant to avoid such incoming rocks...

But oh the irony; When such as that gets hit; Can it really be claimed that it wasn't seen coming?

Can't wait till a big ship heads for mars...

It will be swiss cheese in no time.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
Can't wait till a big ship heads for mars...

It will be swiss cheese in no time.

Elon Musk's starship?