NeXolve has built and delivered the fifth sunshield layer for NASA‘s James Webb Space Telescope to Northrop Grumman‘s aerospace campus in Redondo Beach, California. NASA said Tuesday Northrop will integrate final flight layers into the telescope’s sunshield subsystem to support folding and deployment tests as part of the final system validation process. Northrop designed the telescope’s, optics and spacecraft bus as the […] More

A Northrop Grumman-led industry team has secured the National Aeronautic Association’s Robert J. Collier Trophy in recognition of its work on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The company said Thursday it partnered with L3Harris Technologies, Ball Aerospace, Raytheon Technologies and NeXolve on the space deployable telescope, which launched in December 2021. Northrop led the design, […] More

Northrop Grumman has deployed a sunshield subsystem and tensioned five sunshield layers for the NASA James Webb Space Telescope at the company’s highbay facilities in Redondo Beach, California. The company said Thursday the sunshield subsystem will work to divide the JWST observatory into a warm sun-facing side and a cold space-facing side that features optics and […] More

Northrop Grumman has integrated the last defense layers of a sun shield system built to protect optics and instruments of the James Webb Space Telescope from heat. The company said Monday its aerospace systems business designed the sun shield layers that will work to help reduce the temperatures between cold and hot JWST components. Huntsville, Alabama-based NeXolve manufactured the […] More

Engineers have completed the first “Center of Curvature” test on the primary mirror of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in order to measure the shape of the mirror before the telescope goes through a series of launch environment tests. NASA engineers collaborated with technicians from Ball Aerospace & Technologies and the Space Telescope Science Institute to conduct […] More

Northrop Grumman has received the first of the five sunshield membranes a ManTech International subsidiary produced for NASA‘s James Webb space telescope. Huntsville, Alabama-based NeXolve Corp. designed and manufactured the sunshield layers to help capture images of star and galaxy formation, Northrop said Wednesday. “We are thrilled to receive the first flight layer from NeXolve […] More

A subsidiary of ManTech International has finished the shape testing of the first sunshield membrane layer of NASA‘s James Webb Space Telescope as a subcontractor to Northrop Grumman. NeXolve assembled and tested the layer’s three-dimensional shape with laser beams to confirm if it meets shape specifications, ManTech said Thursday. “We are now proceeding with the remaining layers and will test each […] More