Speakers
Description
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a cryogenic observatory that will provide unprecedented views of our universe. The spacecraft instruments are primarily cooled via passive cryogenic radiators. Ball Aerospace was responsible for designing, building and testing three of these radiators, the Fixed ISIM Radiators (FIR), with the largest designed to dissipate nearly 0.5W at 40K with a radiating area of 4.6m2. This paper will discuss the unique challenges in the design and fabrication of the FIR, and how these challenges were overcome to meet system requirements and deliver radiators with an emissivity of greater than 0.96 at 40K and 95% efficiency. Additionally, this paper will provide details on the thermal balance test design, which includes a large space background simulator with an emissivity of 0.98 at 13K. Testing results will also be provided which verified the performance and capacity of each radiator prior to delivery for integration on the JWST spacecraft.