Northrop Receives Astro Aerospace-Built Boom Assemblies for NASA’s Webb Telescope

Northrop Grumman has received the mid-boom assemblies from its Astro Aerospace subsidiary for integration with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

Astro Aerospace designed and built two boom assemblies designed to deploy the telescope’s sunshield component once in orbit, Northrop said Monday.

Astro Aerospace delivered the assemblies to Northrop’s Redondo Beach, California-based facility after it completed the environmental testing phase.

Each of the mid-boom assemblies has six graphite-epoxy composite tubes and a stainless steel strip – Storable Tubular Extendible Member – designed to facilitate the sunshield’s deployment.

Northrop designs and builds the Webb telescope’s spacecraft, sunshield and optics through a contract with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

NASA works with the Canadian Space Agency and European Space Agency on the new space observatory designed to replace the Hubble Space Telescope.