continued on next page

Webb Still on Track to Amaze 

Despite six micrometeroid dings to the James Webb 

Telescope mirrors, a panel of experts comprised of 

representatives from NASA, the European Space 

Agency and the Canadian Space Agency have 

concluded in a July report that the damage is, at the 

moment, inconsequential, and will have little if any 

effect on current and future observations.

The panel notes that “[Webb] is fully capable of 

achieving the discoveries for which it was built 

... to enable fundamental breakthroughs in our 

understanding of the formation and evolution of 

galaxies, stars, and planetary systems ... [and] we 

now know with certainty that it will ... transform our 

understanding of the cosmos ...”

Nevertheless, the panel concludes that Webb may 

be more susceptible to damage by micrometeoroids than pre-launch modeling predicted. The 

project team is conducting additional investigations 

into the micrometeoroid population, how impacts 

affect beryllium mirrors, and the tradeoffs of pointing restrictions that could minimize the chances of 

additional harm.

CAPSTONE on the Way 

With communications issue resolved, NASA’s 

microwave oven-sized cubesat dubbed CAPSTONE

is heading toward an unique orbit intended in the 

future for Gateway, a lunar space station built by 

the agency and its commercial and international 

partners that will support science and human exploration under Artemis. The craft is slated to arrive 

at its orbital position by mid-November of this year.

Psyche Slips to 2023 

The scheduled 2022 launch of the Psyche mission 

has been delayed. Due to the late delivery of the 

spacecraft’s flight software and testing equipment, 

there was not enough time to complete essential 

testing in the remaining launch period, which ends 

on Oct. 11. When it does fly, the Psyche spacecraft 

will travel to an asteroid with the same name. It 

will orbit the asteroid, spending several months 

mapping and studying its properties.

In every life, there are times of major transition. 

For me, one of those times is now. After 39 

years of having the honor of working with and 

for NASA, I’m now retired as of the end of July. 

While I find myself looking forward to what will 

come next, I’m inevitably looking back on where 

I’ve been and what I’ve done. Fortunately, those 

memories are some of the best I have.

First and foremost, I think of and am grateful for 

all those with whom I’ve worked and the friendships I’ve developed. It may sound like a cliché, 

but for me, it’s the unvarnished truth when I say 

how appreciative I am for every individual I’ve 

had the pleasure of getting to know. 

From field centers and testing facilities, to 

program and project offices, to our small but 

feisty SETMO headquarters team, people have 

made my and our work worthwhile. These 

are smart, energetic, talented colleagues and 

friends whose enthusiasm, dedication, commitment and creativity are second to none. They 

exemplify the best and they bring out the best 

in everything they do.

The Right Choice

When I graduated from Old Dominion University 

in Norfolk, Virginia with a degree in mechanical engineering, I was faced with a choice: I 

could continue working at the nearby Newport 

News Shipyard where I had been an intern for 

three years, or I could go to work at NASA. The 

money was better at the Shipyard, but I couldn’t 

escape NASA’s appeal. I knew right away I 

made the right decision.

A source of continued motivation for me, then 

and now, has been the always challenging and 

inspirational NASA mission. There are too many 

of my favorite individual missions to cite here, 

but among the most outstanding has been the 

launch, deployment and operation of the Webb 

space telescope. I can think of no better example 

of the major role testing has played in mission 

success than that displayed throughout Webb’s 

extensive and exhaustive development and engineering maturation, from white-board sketch to 

on-orbit observatory. 

We have as this Horizons main feature a 

glimpse into the Webb-testing process, elaborating on our previous Webb feature in the 

last newsletter issue. We’ve already seen the 

several dramatic observatory images publicly 

released, and I personally am looking forward 

with keen interest to the additional pictures and 

data Webb will reveal over time.

A final article in this issue takes an initial look 

at what goes into a given facility’s repurposing 

or, in some cases, its demolition, if that better 

serves testing’s overall effectiveness.

Looking Ahead

I’m optimistic about the future and the role 

NASA does and will continue to play in this 

nation’s space-exploration journey. NASA itself 

has unparalleled technological expertise and 

an array of unmatched, robust testing facilities. 

I have been extremely proud to have been 

associated with each of them. 

I hope and I believe SETMO will continue to support and sustain these crucial assets, especially 

necessary as NASA’s mission tempo increases. 

There has never been a greater need for testing, 

and it will continue to be so just as long as 

there’s an American space program. 

I hope you’ll continue to visit our website, 

where we’ll continue to add fresh material, 

including an upcoming video on Artemis testing, 

as well as new articles and information. And, 

of course, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at 

hq-setmo@mail.nasa.gov with any comments 

or feedback.

My tenure is ending just after these first Webb 

images have been made public. That suits me 

just fine. I can’t imagine a better valedictory. 

Many good things are in store, for all of us, I 

hope. Be well, enjoy, and maybe our paths will 

cross again. My best to you and yours in all the 

time still ahead — 

Michael Mastaler

NASA SETMO Newsletter | SUMMER 2022

FROM THE DIRECTOR

NEW AND NOTABLE

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration
continued on next page 2

Verifying the ability of a nextgeneration orbital telescope to 

survive and thrive in space.

As the world marvels over the first public 

images from the James Webb Space Telescope, Webb Deputy Project Manager for 

Technical Verification Paul Geithner is able 

to recall another first-of-its-kind moment: 

when the Webb team thought for a brief — 

blessedly brief — moment it had actually 

broken part of the observatory. 

A portion of the Webb structure, custom-made of graphite epoxy composite, 

underwent vibration testing at NASA’s 

Goddard Space Flight Center in late 2016. 

Connection points in the instrument’s deployable components were stressed to see 

how they would hold up. All was going well, 

until it wasn’t. There was a loud crack. The 

sound wasn’t pretty.

“People said ‘Oh my god, did we 

just break it?” Geithner remembers. 

“I mean, it sounded bad. Then the 

test automatically shut down. That 

was probably the scariest point.”

No harm was done. Tuned mass dampers 

were added to the telescope’s secondary mirror support structure to suppress 

any resonances that would threaten the 

structure’s survival during launch. Testing 

then, and in the months and several years 

to come, continued as the mission team assessed the observatory’s hardiness for the 

extreme conditions it would encounter, both 

during launch and in its eventual permanent 

Lagrange Point 2 (L2) “halo” orbit — larger 

than the size of the Moon’s orbit around 

Earth — gravitationally balanced between 

Earth and the Sun. 

Webb’s destination orbit is thanks to Italian-born 18th century mathematician and 

astronomer Joseph-Louis Lagrange, who 

made important contributions to classical 

and celestial mechanics. Lagrange studied 

the “three-body problem” (thus named 

because of three bodies that orbit one 

another) for the Earth, Sun and Moon. He 

identified five points in near space — L1 

through L5 — where objects could be 

easily orbited.

The Webb observatory — the most complex 

and powerful space telescope launched 

to date — is an exemplar of how testing 

next-generation, space-borne designs and 

gear in environments that closely mimic 

those found in a hard, ultracold and/or ultrahot, radiation-laced vacuum can protect 

as much as possible against known dangers 

and, perhapls, even unknown ones. 

Webb’s problem-free launch, orbital insertion and, to date, successful deployment 

and systems checks underscores testing’s 

worth. Such progress would not have 

been possible without extensive study and 

validation of all Webb systems and components prior to the telescope’s launch and 

deployment. But a major question was how, 

exactly, could tests be conducted for such a 

large apparatus?

Splitting Up the

Right Thing to Do

Even testing in the largest of NASA’s 

vacuum chambers wasn’t feasible, given 

the need to precisely replicate the thermal 

environment on both sides of the observatory in its deployed configuration. A possible 

approach was to build another very large 

chamber to do so, but construction costs and 

the resultant schedule delays were prohibitive. 

The solution: literally split the observatory 

into a pair of large halves that could be 

accommodated — admittedly, with some 

facility adjustments and upgrades — in a variety of test chambers spread across NASA 

centers and prime contractor Northup 

Grumman’s Redondo Beach, Calif. facilities. 

Verification of deployments and Webb’s 

thermal balance occurred as the result of 

combinations of many tests.

Webb structures, components, electronics, 

instruments, and systems would be studied, 

evaluated and validated by, eventually, 

thousands of scientists, engineers, and technicians who in aggregate would build, test, 

and integrate Webb. In total, 258 companies, 

agencies, and universities participated — 

142 from the United States, 104 from 12 

European nations, and 12 from Canada.

“We couldn’t just stick the entire observatory in one vacuum 

chamber and duplicate everything at the same time,” Geithner 

says. “So that’s why we tested in 

two big halves. It turned out our 

approach worked.”

NASA facilities involved in major Webb 

testing were ones located at NASA research 

centers: Goddard Space Flight Center; 

Johnson Space Center; Marshall Space Flight 

Center; and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

Cryogenic — ultracold — testing of the 

telescope, its components and instrument 

packages figured prominently in those 

efforts, as well as vibration and thermal-balance assessments.

“We had to figure out how to test in two 

parts and trust software would certify 

the results of that testing,” says Webb 

STRESS TESTS Making a Hardy Webb

NEW AND NOTABLE

VIPER Rescheduled for 2024 

Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or 

VIPER, is now scheduled for launch no earlier than 

November 2024 to allow for additional ground 

testing of its lunar-lander system. VIPER is a mobile 

robot that will go to the South Pole of the Moon to 

get a close-up view of the location and concentration of water ice that could eventually be harvested 

to sustain extended human exploration on the 

Moon, Mars and beyond. VIPER represents the first 

resource-mapping mission on another celestial body.
STRESS TESTS | Making a Hardy Webb

3

Program Scientist Eric Smith, now chief 

scientist in the Astrophysics Division at 

NASA Headquarters. “That was so when 

we put the parts together the observatory 

would work in space. Lo and behold — it 

worked amazingly.”

Clean but Stormy

Beginning in July 2017 at Johnson Space 

Center, in its Chamber A facility, scientists 

and engineers put Webb’s optical telescope 

and its integrated science instrument module known as OTIS through a series of coldstress tests as well. Those studies included 

an important alignment check of Webb’s 18 

primary mirror segments, to ensure all the 

observatory’s gold-plated, hexagonal segments acted like a single, monolithic mirror. 

This was the first time the telescope’s optics 

and its instruments were tested together, 

though the instruments had previously 

undergone cryogenic testing in a smaller 

chamber at Goddard. Engineers from Harris 

Space and Intelligence Systems, headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, worked alongside NASA personnel for the test at Johnson.

Before Webb was placed inside, Johnson 

engineers built a large cleanroom around 

the Chamber A entrance. The modification, 

Smith says, “turned a ‘dirty’ chamber into a 

clean one. That was a big investment.”

The cleanroom enabled the telescope to be 

hoisted from its shipping container and unwrapped from protective bagging, deployed, 

rotated from horizontal to vertical, placed 

on its test platform and, finally, slid into the 

chamber on rails and hung from the six long 

suspending rods.

“Chamber A was a pretty obvious choice, 

aside from building an entirely new facility,” 

Geithner says. “It was a lot better than starting from scratch. It’s a really nice facility 

where you can pull a really high vacuum.”

While Webb was inside the chamber, 

insulated from both outside visible and 

infrared light, engineers monitored it using 

thermal sensors and specialized camera 

systems. The thermal sensors kept tabs on 

the temperature of the telescope, while 

the camera systems tracked the physical 

position of Webb to see how its components moved during the cooldown process. 

Not all would go to plan. Although savvy 

testers learn to expect the unexpected, 

some events will try the patience of even 

the best-prepared. 

“Our testing plan was solid. We prepped 

a lot at JSC,” Geithner says. “We planned 

for and upgraded so we would survive 

a 500-year hurricane. And guess what 

happened? Hurricane Harvey.”

Harvey slammed into the coast of Texas on 

August 25, 2017, as a Category 4 hurricane 

before stalling over eastern Texas and weakening to a tropical storm, where it dropped 

as much as 50 inches of rain in and around 

Houston. Despite the maelstrom, Webb telescope team members at Johnson remained 

in place for uninterrupted, three-shifts work 

for 100 days straight. 

Another problem arose: liquid-nitrogen supplies, essential to maintaining the ultra-cold 

conditions in the chamber, were running 

low. The test’s technical leader, telescope 

manager Lee Feinberg, made an emergency 

call to the nitrogen supplier, explaining the 

nature and urgency of the mission. Drivers 

from Austin rushed to deliver and replenish 

the liquid nitrogen, arriving just in the nick 

of time.

“People went the extra mile to keep 

the test going and the hardware 

safe,” Geithner says. “All of us were 

determined. We were committed.”

Understanding Testing

They didn’t pack the punch of a hurricane, 

but two other incidents gave testers some 

pause. Acoustic testing in 2017-18 by 

Northrop Grumman resulted in a number 

of #4 locking bolts in the Webb sunshield 

falling off. Although it was, Geithner recalls, 

“a colossal annoyance” as engineers worked 

to solve the problem. it proved not to be a 

game-ender. As he points out, “That’s why 

you test, right?” 

Closer to launch, in December 2021 as the 

Webb payload was being encapsulated, a 

launch interface ring sprung open and, Eric 

Smith says, “flew away. Happily, there was 

no effect. Still, it was pretty scary to see a 

piece of the rocket detach like that.”

Smith still remembers his visits to NASA’s 

Space Environments Complex at 

what is now the Armstrong Test 

Facility, part of Glenn Research Center. There he 

was able to see testing’s 

inner workings, including 

the variety and extent of 

the complex equipment 

required to assess and 

verify the hardiness of 

spacecraft, structures, 

systems, components 

and instruments.

Smith says mission team 

members, even those 

not directly engaged 

with testing, should 

become familiar at some 

level with testing regimes, procedures and 

processes — not to mention the people who 

actually and actively oversee what goes on in 

the chambers.

“As a scientist you should want to 

get to know your engineers. Get 

to know them so you understand 

their language so you understand 

the testing program,” he asserts. “That’s what scientists need 

to think more about. Go into a 

program or project with testing in 

mind, from the very beginning.”

Identifying problems, reducing risk, increasing mission safety and effectiveness 

— these are the guiding principles for testing. 

They may not fit comfortably as words on 

a bumper sticker, but for all missions, past, 

present and future, they’re the ones that 

testers live and work by.

Webb completed all its deployments in the 

first two weeks after launch, while it was 

traveling toward L2. It did not insert into its 

destination orbit until a month after launch. 

By then, Geithner and his Webb colleagues 

knew that the observatory had passed successfully beyond every of the potential 295 

single-point deployment failures the team 

had identified and prepared for. 

“All of those failures could have happened, 

and they didn’t, thanks to all the process 

controls and testing implemented over 

the years,” he says. “So we said, 

‘This thing is going to work.’”

And so it has.
4

www.nasa.gov

Absent refurbishment and/or 

repurposing, older testing facilities 

face demolition.

There are those truly fond of “Big Iron”: typically, large research enclosures where scale 

models are studied and assessed in a wide 

variety of atmospheres and temperatures. 

Such structures, though, can’t always survive 

the march of technology when surpassed by 

the increasing power and sophistication of 

computer simulation, and the parallel creation 

of next-generation sensors and the complex 

physical systems they comprise.

When upgrading isn’t realistic economically 

or technologically, then the time has come to 

make another choice. Nostalgia must inevitably give way to reality. 

“We need to be open and honest. We sustain 

where we can, where it makes sense, and 

where a good case can be made for the 

return on investment,” says SETMO Director 

Michael Mastaler. “But demolition has to be 

part of the discussion. Talk about divestiture or 

demolition, and you will get pushback. But it 

can be the best decision you can make.”

Straightforward Questions, 

Complex Answers

NASA’s history is replete with examples of 

capabilities and facilities that go through a 

more or less predictable life cycle: brand 

new, sustained while needed and, eventually, 

demolished when outmoded and outdated. 

Mastaler says keeping a facility going strong 

boils down to the best-use case. Personnel, 

maintenance and operations costs, and 

frequency of use are key considerations and 

must be continually factored in. It doesn’t do 

any good to have the best test facility with 

little or no interest from testing programs, or 

with test costs so high that they deter potential customers.

Other Considerations

• Is it worth it to have Agency research 

capabilities on standby just in case? 

• Which facilities are essential in avoiding 

genuine catastrophe for users like NASA, 

the U.S. Department of Defense, and 

commercial and international interests?

• Which facilities can perform multiple test 

roles?

• Which facilities uniquely provide other 

critical information?

• When there are other options, which 

facilities provide the best value to the 

testing customer when considering time, 

proximity, existing databases, and cost?

Answers to these questions usually aren’t 

simple ones to make. Conclusions — and 

solutions —take time. And other complicating 

factors can intervene unexpectedly as well.

Positive and Flexible Recently, the decision was made to demolish 

NASA Langley’s Thermal Acoustic Fatigue 

Apparatus (TAFA). Built in 1965, the facility 

was last modernized in 2009. Its current 

replacement value is estimated in the millions: 

an economic reality that argues against its 

retention and upgrade. TAFA teardown, Mastaler says, will free up more space for Langley 

acoustics researchers: “In this case, it makes 

sense. It’s a positive step.”

At another NASA center, Marshall Space Flight 

Center, planning is underway for the repurposing of its Chamber V-20, from a “clean” to 

a “dirty” vacuum chamber. As NASA prepares 

for extended missions to the Moon and Mars, 

there need to be facilities where surface 

materials on both can be simulated so that 

effects on astronauts, their gear, their rovers, 

and whatever habitats they deploy can be 

closely studied and assessed.

Very unlike Earth soil, lunar and Martian “soil” 

don’t contain the organic substances found 

on Earth. For example, on the Moon, tiny 

grains of rock-like material called regolith 

coat the surface, while Martian sand and dust 

predominate on that planet. 

“The V-20 chamber is a good and recent 

example of repurposing,” Mastaler says. “The 

idea of repurposing is so that an asset is used 

in a different way. At the end of the day, the 

motto is ‘be flexible.’ The Marshall chamber is 

a real-world example.”

IN FOCUS Move On or Lean In?
5

WHAT’S NEXT

Visit us at

https://www.nasa.gov/offices/setmo

www.nasa.gov

ISRU Technology

Program Review

As explorers fan out through the solar 

system, a primary requirement is to find 

practical and affordable ways to use resources along the way. Using local materials 

to, for example, generate water for drinking, 

hygiene, and plant growth; create rocket 

propellants; fashion building materials; and 

satisfy a myriad of other needs, is a practice 

known as in-situ resource utilization, or 

ISRU. In mid-August, SETMO participated in 

the second annual NASA ISRU Technology

Program Review, which focused on funded 

active or recently completed ISRU efforts. 

The review was a hybrid event, with a physical location near NASA’s Johnson Space 

Center in Houston, Texas, as well as virtual 

presentations and interactions for participants who did not travel. The information 

presented informed NASA and partner 

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics 

Laboratory on the state of ongoing efforts in 

NASA-funded ISRU technology development, 

and helped identify areas where further 

funding and development is required in 

future NASA solicitations.

Launch of the

Artemis I Uncrewed Mission

Scheduled for its maiden flight on August 

29, the uncrewed Artemis I mission was 

scrubbed because of a temperature issue 

with one of its Space Launch System 

(SLS) rocket’s four engines. Although two 

early-September launch windows remained 

open at that time, no additional flight dates 

were specified by NASA officials immediately after the postponement.

Engineers were unable to coax the engine 

in question to the proper temperature range 

required for ignition, and ran out of time in 

the two-hour launch window to continue. All 

four of the SLS RS-25 engines must be thermally conditioned before super-cold propellant begins flowing and liftoff commences. 

An earlier issue with a component called 

a “collet” — a fist-sized ring that guides the 

quick disconnect during assembly operations, where a liquid hydrogen umbilical 

attaches — has been resolved. During work 

to repair the source of a hydrogen leak, 

engineers identified a loose fitting on the 

inside wall of the rocket’s engine section 

and made the necessary adjustments. 

A crewed Artemis Moon landing could 

come as early as 2025, with additional 

Artemis missions to follow. Eventually, 

astronauts may extend their stay on an 

Artemis base camp that may include a 

lunar cabin, a rover, and even a mobile 

home. As the base camp evolves, crew 

may remain on the lunar surface for up to 

two months at a time.

X-59 Testing to 

Prep for the First Test Flight

The X-59 QueSST — short for Quiet Experimental Supersonic Technology — aircraft 

is schedule to begin its first overland test 

flights at the end of the year. To provide regulators with data for changing aviation rules 

that ban commercial supersonic flight over 

land, NASA plans to fly the X-59 over a number of U.S. communities and survey populations on the acceptability of the sound they 

hear. NASA will share this information with 

national and international regulators.

Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in 

Palmdale, California, has completed lowspeed wind tunnel tests of a scale model 

of the X-59’s forebody. The tests provided 

measurements of how wind flows around 

the aircraft nose and confirmed computer 

predictions made using computational fluid 

dynamics software tools. The data will be 

fed into the aircraft flight control system 

and will allow the pilot to know the X-59’s 

altitude, speed, and flight angle. 

Engineers placed small wind vanes on the 

X-59 model to measure the angle of the 

wind at the precise location of the air data 

instruments on the full-scale aircraft. The 

testing compared the data collected from 

the wind tunnel with computer model predictions and confirmed agreement.