NASA Adds Docking Ring to JWST

The JWST or James Webb Space Telescope, the replacement for the Hubble is having a docking section added to it.

NASA is adding a docking ring to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) just in case a visit by astronauts aboard a future Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle is needed to complete deployment of the multi-billion-dollar orbiting observatory.

Billed as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, the JWST is slated to launch in mid-2013. By the time it is fully expanded as it is deployed at a gravitationally stable spot some 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, the spacecraft will be about the length of a tennis court. Building, launching and operating the infrared telescope for 10 years is expected to cost $4.5 billion, making it the most expensive science mission NASA has in development.

"What if you have a bad day when you put this thing a million miles out and everything folds out except for an antenna ... it gets stuck? Or a solar panel doesn't fold out completely, and you say, 'gee, I wish we could send an astronaut just to give it a kick'?" said Edward Weiler, director of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the Greenbelt, Md., facility in charge of the Webb telescope.

"We are going to design for the James Webb Space Telescope a little ring that the Crew Exploration Vehicle could dock with so if we had a bad day the astronauts could go out to James Webb and do minimal, gross things," he said. "They couldn't replace instruments, they couldn't change out things, but they could fix things that were obviously wrong."

Weiler said it is his hope and expectation that an astronaut service call never proves necessary. That point was seconded by Martin Mohan, the JWST program manager at Redondo Beach, Calif.-based Northrop Grumman Space Technology.


SOURCE:
Space.com

I think this is a pretty goo idea, considering how expensive and lengthy the JWST has been,
the last thing you want is to launch it and have one of solar panels to only deploy partially and
screw it all up.

I'm glad NASA thought to add this.


Comments, Opinions?

[edit on 5/23/2007 by iori_komei]