NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently suffered a micrometeoroid strike by a particle larger than any that the team had modeled for.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently suffered a micrometeoroid strike to one of its 18 primary mirror segments, though engineers working on the mission insist the damage has been minimal. The recently launched Webb telescope is the most powerful space observatory ever deployed and will soon start peering into deep space in a bid to learn more about the origins of the universe. The $10 billion multiyear mission is the result of a partnership between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, and has been decades in the making. While it’s normal for spacecraft to experience impact events of this nature, NASA noted that this particular micrometeoroid, which hit the telescope between May 25 and May 27, was larger than any it had forecast when modeling such events prior to the mission’s launch in December 2021. Analysis of the damage to the mirror segment is ongoing, but NASA said the early indications are that the telescope is continuing to perform “at a level that exceeds all mission requirements despite a marginally detectable effect in the data.
