Wiring harnesses for the James Webb Space Telescope

Article Type: News and views From: Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology: An International Journal, Volume 81, Issue 3

Tekdata Interconnections Limited has been awarded a major contract from Northrop Grumman to provide wiring harnesses for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) program. Tekdata will provide technical expertise and build the high-specification cryogenic wiring harnesses that will connect parts of the JWST in orbit.

The Webb Telescope, a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, will be NASA’s premier space observatory following its launch in 2013. It will orbit 1.5 million km from Earth at the second Earth-Sun Lagrange point, capturing infrared images of every phase of our cosmic history – from the first luminous objects to the assembly of galaxies and formation of planetary systems.

With its tennis court-sized sunshield, the Webb Telescope needs complex harnesses to link the spacecraft’s systems, supplying power and data for the telescope’s alignment control systems as it orbits Earth in ultra-low temperatures. Tekdata will build a range of test harnesses and pre-flight cables before supplying the flight harnesses for integration into the spacecraft.