Spacecraft bus (James Webb Space Telescope)
primary support component of the James Webb Space Telescope
The spacecraft bus is a carbon fibre box that houses systems of the telescope and so is the primary support element of the James Webb Space Telescope, launched on 25 December 2021. It hosts a multitude of computing, communication, propulsion, and structural components. The other three elements of the JWST are the Optical Telescope Element (OTE), the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM), and the sunshield. Region 3 of ISIM is also inside the spacecraft bus. Region 3 includes the ISIM Command and Data Handling subsystem and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) cryocooler.
The spacecraft bus must structurally support the 6.5 ton space telescope, while weighing only 350 kg (770 lb). It is made primarily of graphite composite material. It was assembled by Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, California by 2015, and then it had to be integrated with the rest of the space telescope leading up to its planned 2018 launch. The bus can provide pointing precision of one arcsecond (1⁄3600°) and isolates vibration down to two milliarcseconds. The fine pointing is done by the JWST fine guidance mirror, obviating the need to physically move the whole mirror or bus.
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This entry incorporates text from “Spacecraft bus (James Webb Space Telescope)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.