JWST Thermal Links
James Webb Space Telescope
SDL has developed flexible thermal links for numerous space applications including NASA’s JWST. These low-mass links, fabricated from high purity aluminum foils, maximize thermal conductance in their cryogenic operating conditions, minimize mechanical interaction, and provide dynamic flexibility as they transport heat from JWST’s science instruments to their radiators, enabling each instrument to operate at desired temperatures.
SDL also developed the complex set of associated T300 composite support flexures for the system, providing necessary thermal isolation from the links to the support structure.
SDL has also designed and fabricated links and a composite support structure which is an integral part of the detector system in the NIRSpectrograph Instrument on JWST.
The JWST, a large infrared-optimized space telescope, will find the first galaxies that formed in the early Universe by examining every phase of cosmic history, from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang to the formation of galaxies, stars, planets, and our own solar system.
