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How do other telescopes avoid/deal with this problem? I don't recall the James Webb telescope having a similar issue, for example.
by munchler 3y ago
How do other telescopes avoid/deal with this problem? I don't recall the James Webb telescope having a similar issue, for example.
- frederikvs 3y agoI would expect James Webb has the same issue, and similar ways of dealing with it. It's just that it never hits the press, since it's a normal part of operations. I'm not sure why Euclid's icing issue is getting some attention now, from the ESA article this was expected. Maybe it's just that it's slightly worse than anticipated, and they're changing their way of dealing with it?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Laremere 3y agoJames Webb underwent a very specific cool down procedure. It included a phase where everything but the instruments were cooled down first, so that water from elsewhere in the spacecraft didn't stick to the instruments. Moving a bit into speculation territory, I can make a more specific guess. The article for Euclid specifically mentions insulation as the source of the water. It appears that the water in the other components were properly accounted for in Euclid's cool down procedure. For Euclid, insulation directly surrounds the telescope portion. James Webb is build different. There's insulation on the solar panel side, but the giant heat shield is between that and the mirrors and sensors. I don't think there is any insulation on the mirror and sensor side, because besides the sun there's no significant sources of heat where James Webb is.