NASA equips new telescope with powerful solar shields

NASA scientists have installed two sunshields on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The shields will protect the telescope’s sensitive instruments from heat and stray light.

At the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), a team of experts designs and tests Roman’s thermal shielding and deployment systems. The latest installation moves the Roman telescope closer to its launch window.

Cooling is essential because heat can swamp faint signals detected by Roman’s sensors. The infrared, light with wavelengths longer than red, carries the dim glow from distant objects that Roman aims to study.

Without shade, warming would distort measurements by changing optical alignments and detector behavior. That tight control of temperature and vibration keeps the data precise for science.

Space has no air to carry heat away, so energy escapes mainly as radiation, energy emitted as light and heat. Roman’s shields and blankets are tuned to manage that flow.

How shields protect the Roman

Aerospace engineers Matthew Stephens and Conrad Mason helped design the sun-shade system for the Roman telescope.

“This shield acts like heavy-duty sunblock, keeping Roman’s instruments safe from the Sun’s heat and glare,” explained Stephens.

“They’re basically giant aluminum sandwiches, with metal sheets as thin as a credit card on the top and bottom and the central portion made up of a honeycomb structure,” said Mason. 

Each panel is roughly 7 by 7 feet and 3 inches thick, wrapped in a polymer blanket that uses 17 layers on the Sun side and one on the shaded side.

The hot face can reach 216 degrees Fahrenheit. That thermal gradient, a temperature difference across the shield, drives the design choices that keep the cold side stable.

Roman’s shield is part of the Lower Instrument Sun Shade, which works with the solar array shield and a Deployable Aperture Cover (DAC). This layered approach uses stacked reflective films that slow heat flow, to hold temperatures steady.

Keeping Roman’s shields stable

“They each take about two minutes to move into their final positions,” said Stephens. These movements rely on dampers, devices that slow motion and absorb energy to prevent shocks.

Next comes a 70-day thermal trial that simulates space conditions by removing air and cycling temperatures. This thermal vacuum test, long duration environmental testing in a vacuum chamber, verifies the shield and instruments stay within tight limits.

After the chamber run, engineers will temporarily remove the sunshade to join Roman’s inner and outer assemblies. This integration, joining subsystems into one observatory, sets up the final prelaunch checks.

The deployment in space will occur soon after separation from the rocket. That sequence, the ordered set of post launch steps, starts with the shield so the instruments cool promptly.

What Roman will study

Roman will tackle dark energy, exoplanets, and other cosmic questions, as described in a mission overview.

By dark energy, an unknown cause of the universe’s faster expansion, scientists refer to a driver that shapes cosmic history.

Its planet census will use microlensing, gravity from a star and its planets briefly magnifying a background star, to find worlds that other methods miss. These quick brightenings reveal planets at wide orbits, including cold giants and even free floaters.

Roman will also carry a coronagraph, a light blocker that reveals planets near bright stars by suppressing glare. A recent peer reviewed paper details the instrument level requirements and test results that guide its performance.

The Wide Field Instrument will capture large sky areas with Hubble-like sharpness to map structure across cosmic time. That wide field of view, the sky area captured in a single image, is key to fast surveys.

Lessons from Roman telescope shields

The White House budget request outlines government wide streamlining and program reductions that could affect NASA planning.

In this context, appropriations, the laws that set federal funding, will determine Roman’s pace and operations.

An independent analysis estimates NASA funding would drop by nearly 25 percent if enacted. Congress writes the final numbers, so proposals can change before becoming law.

For now, Roman’s schedule stands, with launch due by May 2027 and a target as early as fall 2026. That timeline remains unchanged on NASA’s schedule.

The installation marks more than just progress for the NASA team. It demonstrates steady, careful work guiding one of the agency’s most ambitious observatories toward readiness.

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