How can a sunshade on NASA’s Roman Space Telescope help protect the multi-billion-dollar instrument to conduct cutting-edge science? This is what NASA engineers hope to find out as they recently installed two sunshades designed to protect Roman and its precious scientific instruments from the extreme environment of space, specifically the Sun’s intense heat. These sunshades are just one step in constructing Roman, as engineers are scheduled to complete Roman’s full assembly this fall with a target launch date of fall 2026 and no later than May 2027.
The garage door-sized sunshades will be tasked with protecting the spacecraft and its instruments from 216 degrees Fahrenheit on the Sun-side, along with preventing heat transfer to the non-Sun side, which experiences -211 degrees Fahrenheit. The sunshades are slated to be deployed approximately one hour after launch.
“This shield is like an extremely strong sunblock for Roman’s sensitive instruments, protecting them from heat and light from the Sun that would otherwise overwhelm our ability to detect faint signals from space,” said Matthew Stephens, who is an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
The concept for Roman, which is officially called the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, was conceived from several past mission concepts, including the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM). The primary objective of Roman will be to identify and discover new exoplanets while also studying the overall structure of the universe. Roman will specifically study the nature of dark energy, which is a longstanding proposed form of energy that is hypothesized to dictate the structure of the universe.
How will these sunshades help protect Roman as it carries out its mission to discover exoplanets and teach scientists about the universe? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: EurekAlert!, NASA
Featured Image: Artist's illustration of the Roman Space Telescope. (Credit NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)
