Whatever plans one has in space, micrometeorites need to be prepared for, they are inevitable, and we have seen them more than once, for example, on the International Space Station or the Hubble Space Telescope.
Impact of a small meteor impact on one of the windows of the International Space Station.
Source: NASA
The The James Webb Space Telescope is designed this way tooTo be able to withstand the micro-meteorites expected at its station, May 23-25, 2022. Between 2006 and 2006, one of the mirror’s main parts was hit – and a larger-than-expected grain was hit.
After the first inspections, the telescope’s operation is still above quality required for its mission, but there is little and too faint trace to affect the data. More accurate measurements and analyzes are still in progress.
Micrometeorites are expected over the entire lifetime of a space telescope, which is why the mirror has been tested for this situation, even here on Earth. The operation of the space telescope is much better than expected and will be able to perform the scientific tasks assigned to it.
A space telescope that orbits around the 2 sun-earth rest point is designed to withstand the effects of dust particles arriving at extremely high speeds, either by simulation or by samples made of mirror material for testing in order to make them as resistant as possible to these effects.
However, the latest impact particle appears to have exceeded the expected size and can be tested during the construction period.
Mi is az a mikrometeoroid? Egy egészen aprócska porszem, amely a világűrben száguld. Amennyiben egy ilyen szemcse belép a földi légkörbe és felizzik, mikrometeor lesz belőle, ha pedig a felszínre hull, akkor mikrometeorit. A nagyobb méretű szemcséknél ugyanezt az elvet használjuk: a világűrben meteoroid, a légkörben meteor, a felszínen meteorit a neve.
“We’ve always known that the web has to suffer from the space environment, including the sun’s intense ultraviolet rays, cosmic rays coming from exotic sources in our galaxy, and of course the accidental impact of micrometeorites.” said Paul Geithner, deputy technical project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Center. He added that the spacecraft was designed to perform much better so that it would be able to carry out its multi-year mission even under the negative impact of these space conditions. Fortunately, it was in much better condition before its release (for example, they ran much cleaner than planned during construction) which improved the consequences of planned malfunctions.
In addition, Webb is able to partially correct the distortion caused by the effects by adjusting the position of the affected mirror clip slightly by its controllers. Although not all effects can be offset by this, the first such modification has already been made to the affected C3 clip and the modification will continue. These steps could be repeated at any time in the future if similar events interfere with the operation of the space telescope.
If known meteor showers approached Webb’s station, they would also be able to avoid evasive maneuvers, but the current collision was not the result and was completely inevitable. However, an engineering team has been set up to deal with similar incidents, with the help of an expert on micrometeorites.
Such events as Webb experienced also illustrate what kind of dust environment exists at the L2 rest point.
So far, web operators have detected 4 collisions, and all because very small particles arrive as expected, the latter only larger than expected. Also in this case, we are talking about dust particles, only the slightly larger particles, so one should not think about cutting the stone, the exact size cannot be said without knowing the speed of the impact of the grain, this is an unknown number.
