All is proceeding as planned (up there, if not so much here, down below) -- with tomorrow as a very big day: half of the gold hexagonal mirrors will unfold, and rotate, into place (it is hoped). The other half, on Saturday. Here's the bit:
. . .At about 8:48 a.m. EST, a specialized radiator assembly necessary for [the 'scope's] science instruments to reach their required low and stable operating temperatures deployed successfully. The Aft Deployable Instrument Radiator, or ADIR, is a large, rectangular, 4 by 8-foot panel, consisting of high-purity aluminum subpanels covered in painted honeycomb cells to create an ultra-black surface. The ADIR, which swings away from the backside of the telescope like a trap door on hinges, is connected to the instruments via flexible straps made of high-purity aluminum foil. The radiator draws heat out of the instruments and dumps it overboard to the extreme cold background of deep space.
The deployment of the ADIR – a process that released a lock to allow the panel to spring into position -- took about 15 minutes.
[The team's] final series of major deployments is planned to start tomorrow, Jan. 7, with the rotation into position of the first of two primary mirror wings. The second primary mirror wing -- [the 'scope's] final major spacecraft deployment -- is planned for Saturday, Jan. 8. . . .
And. . . as all good things come to an end, my eldest baby girl hops a plane from here in the desert later tonight, first to Orlando, for a lay-over, and then on non-stop to Medellín / Antioquia Province, Columbia -- for a couple of warmer months by a mountain lake -- with her fellow adventure-travel friends. So, sorta' a sad smile, at that. . . but onward.
नमस्ते
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