NASA says James Webb mirror alignment continues successfully

Source From: ENT 2022-02-27 10:13:42

Space agency NASA has announced that James Webb continued on its path to becoming a focused observatory as the team has successfully worked through the second and third out of seven total phases of mirror alignment.

With the completion of these phases, called Segment Alignment and Image Stacking, the team will now begin making smaller adjustments to the positions of Webb's mirrors.

"After moving what were 18 scattered dots of starlight into Webb's signature hexagonal formation, the team refined each mirror segment's image by making minor adjustments, while also changing the alignment of James Webb's secondary mirror," the space agency said in a statement.

The completion of this process, known as Segment Alignment, was a key step prior to overlapping the light from all the mirrors so that they can work in unison.

Once Segment Alignment was achieved, the focused dots reflected by each mirror were then stacked on top of each other, delivering photons of light from each segment to the same location on NIRCam's sensor.

During this process, called Image Stacking, the team activated sets of six mirrors at a time and commanded them to repoint their light to overlap, until all dots of starlight overlapped with each other.

"We still have work to do, but we are increasingly pleased with the results we're seeing," said Lee Feinberg, optical telescope element manager for Webb at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

"Years of planning and testing are paying dividends, and the team could not be more excited to see what the next few weeks and months bring," Feinberg added.