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Goddard Engineering and Technology Directorate

Goddard’s Roman Team Successfully Integrates the Deployable Aperture Cover

This photo shows the deployable aperture cover for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope as seen through the outer barrel assembly. Both components will help shield the telescope from stray light, improving Roman’s sensitivity to faint light from across the universe. Credit NASA/Chris Gunn
This photo shows the deployable aperture cover for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope as seen through the outer barrel assembly. Both components will help shield the telescope from stray light, improving Roman’s sensitivity to faint light from across the universe. Credit NASA/Chris Gunn

NASA Successfully Joins Sunshade to Roman Observatory’s ‘Exoskeleton’

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has successfully integrated the mission’s deployable aperture cover — a visor-like sunshade that will help prevent unwanted light from entering the telescope — to the outer barrel assembly, another structure designed to shield the telescope from stray light in addition to keeping it at a stable temperature.

Roman's newly integrated sunshade and outer barrel assembly
Technicians at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., recently integrated the deployable aperture cover to the outer barrel assembly for the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Credit NASA/Chris Gunn

“It’s been incredible to see these major components go from computer models to building and now integrating them,” said Sheri Thorn, an aerospace engineer working on Roman’s sunshade at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Since it’s all coming together at Goddard, we get a front row seat to the process. We’ve seen it mature, kind of like watching a child grow up, and it’s a really gratifying experience.”

The sunshade functions like a heavy-duty version of blackout curtains you might use to keep your room extra dark. It will make Roman more sensitive to faint light from across the universe, helping astronomers see dimmer and farther objects. Made of two layers of reinforced thermal blankets, the sunshade is designed to remain folded during launch and deploy after Roman is in space. Three booms will spring upward when triggered electronically, raising the sunshade like a page in a pop-up book…

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