Project Description
<p>NVT Group members Team and Data Physics Corporations were trusted to deliver the high-performance vibration test systems used to validate the James Webb Space Telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland. On December 3rd, 2016, vibration testing automatically shut down early due to sensor readings that exceeded predicted levels. After a thorough investigation, the James Webb Space Telescope team at NASA Goddard determined that the cause was extremely small motions of the numerous tie-downs or “launch restraint mechanisms” that keep one of the telescope’s mirror wings folded-up for launch.</p><p>The “safe shutdown” sequence built into the Team and Data Physics systems functioned exactly as designed – gently stopping the test within a fraction of a second of the alarm-level response measurements. This safe shutdown functionality allows interlocks between the Team hardware, Data Physics shakers and amplifiers, and specific customer interlocks to initiate a safe shutdown to the Data Physics Matrix controller, which ramps the test down per the customer requirements.</p>