Programme your telescope with a series of commands to guide it to its final destination.
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Deep Space Diary
Activity 3.4
Webb is the most ambitious space telescope humans have built to date. Its primary mirror measures 6.5 meters in diameter and its kite-shaped sunshield is approximately the size of a tennis court when deployed. To fit Webb into the rocket taking it to space, engineers designed it to carefully fold up and unfold (or deploy) properly in space. This activity asks students to plan and design a basic model of the telescope that will fold away and fit into the rocket’s payload bay.
Support Materials
Multimedia Downloads
Image Bundle: Pack Your Payload (407.11 KB zip) ↓ PowerPoint Presentation: Pack Your Payload (934.08 KB pptx) ↓Links
- Animation showing how Webb fits the Ariane 5 rocket
(Please note that sunshield retraction isn’t included in the clip.) - Time lapse footage of primary mirror being folded
- Animated clip of how Webb’s launch sequence and deployment
- Image 1 of Webb inside payload bay
- Image 2 of Webb inside payload bay
- Image 3 of Webb inside payload bay
- Image 4 of Webb inside payload bay
More Activities
Parking Skills
Deep Space Decoder
Decode an encrypted message to unlock your telescope’s deployment sequence.
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