Mei-Li joined Northrop Grumman as an intern. Today, she’s a mechanical design engineer on the James Webb Space Telescope, working on the mechanical ground systems engineering team.
To the Edge of the Universe: Four Employees Share Their Experience Shaping the Webb Telescope Launch.
Imagine having to squeeze an enormous mirror and a sunshield that's the size of a tennis court into a rocket ship. This is the reality of an intricate deployment Northrop Grumman engineers have incorporated into the construction of the James Webb Space Telescope.
Stories and reflections on building the largest, most complex telescope in history from employees at Northrop Grumman.
The backplane of James Webb Space Telescope will hold the weight of more than 5,300 pounds of optics and instruments — while staying calm in a cold environment.
By using weights, pulleys and other forms of ground support equipment (not to mention a deep understanding of physics), Northrop Grumman engineers can mimic, as much as possible, the weightlessness of zero G.
Cryocoolers are machines that keep sensors extremely cold so that satellites and space telescopes can take pictures on long-term missions. Whether we're looking back toward Earth or outward into deep space, the sensors that capture images require extremely low temperatures.
James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) is the closest thing we have to time travel, capturing images that offer a glimpse to the origins of the universe
Northrop Grumman engineers combined digital modeling with physical testing to predict how the James Webb Space Telescope -- the world's largest telescope -- will perform in space.
When it comes to solving the mysteries of the universe, Northrop Grumman has pioneered groundbreaking technologies from the very beginning of the Space Age. Our engineering and innovation have made possible a decades-long list of historic space missions to help humanity peer farther into the cosmos than ever before, including most recently with the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb).
While the payload of a space launch garners the most attention, it's the spacecraft bus that carries and supports every aspect of the mission for the life of that craft.