Preparing for Launch and Beyond: Testing Roman's Outer Barrel Assembly

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Want to see this in even more detail? Watch the 57-minute version here: https://youtu.be/vAJvnPfot5M The Outer Barrel Assembly, or OBA, is a key part of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. It is made of two main parts: the shell section, a baffled carbon-fiber tube that surrounds the telescope to keep the temperature stable and project it from stray light; and the support struts, which extend past the instruments to connect the shell section to the rear spacecraft bus where all the support systems are located. Although the OBA is one of the less complicated parts of the overall observatory, the testing process for it is anything but simple. This time-lapse covers one tiny part of the intricate dance that all of Roman’s systems have been working their way through on their path to joining together as the complete observatory. Just one of the many tests the OBA undergoes is static load testing in NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s 120-foot-diameter centrifuge. The two parts of the OBA are separated and tested individually, with aluminum weights called mass simulators, or mass sims for short, taking the place of other parts of the spacecraft and creating the correct center of gravity. Nearly 100 sensors are connected throughout the structure to carefully measure the strain on each part of it. The OBA is attached to a metal plate which can tip and rotate hydraulically to change the position of the test hardware. These changes in position ensure that every component of the

Published 2024-10-16 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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