James Webb Space Telescope Is Truly Wired For Space By Northrop Grumman

A new and advanced technology interface named SpaceWire will be used in the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), built by Northrop Grumman for NASA. This technology will allow the telescope’s components to work far more efficiently and more reliably with each other. SpaceWire is a standard for high-speed communication links between satellite components. Originally developed by the European Space Agency (ESA), SpaceWire has been adopted and improved by a team at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The JWST Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) and Command and Data Handling (ICDH) engineering team has developed a small and very low power microchip that sends and receives SpaceWire signals at speeds of over 200 megabits per second. The increase in speed achieved using SpaceWire is analogous to the advantage of a high-speed broadband Internet connection over a dial-up modem. SpaceWire connects multiple spacecraft components on super-fast links to get a quicker result.





The new higher bandwidth made available by SpaceWire will allow the JWST ISIM to support the mission’s science instruments, which employ 66 million detector pixels. This is the largest number of pixels ever used on a space telescope, and it will allow JWST to study more of the universe. The JWST science instruments will be able to realize their full scientific discovery potential. Plus, such will permit future NASA mission planners to consider use of more detectors with an even larger number of pixels to see even more of the universe.




The James Webb Space Telescope is a 21st century space observatory that will peer back more than 13 billion years in time to understand the formation of galaxies, stars and planets and the evolution of our own solar system. It is expected to launch in 2013. The telescope is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency—Redondo Beach, California