Wiring harnesses link space telescope
Tekdata Interconnection
Wiring harnesses
Tekdata Interconnections has been awarded a major contract from Northrop Grumman to provide wiring harnesses for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) programme.
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 at 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 preflight cables before supplying the flight harnesses for integration into the spacecraft.
Roy Blake, Tekdata's JWST technical lead, says: 'This expertise includes solutions derived from other Tekdata projects using our Cryoconnect technologies involving superconducting materials, ultra-fine-gauge wire fabrication processes and planar structures to achieve optimal electrical performance and repeatability.' The Webb Telescope programme is an international collaboration led by NASA, and includes partners from the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency; Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor to NASA.
More stories
Electronics specialists for clients wishing to extend RIO hardware products weblink
The Electronic Design Specialty service from National Instruments (NI) identifies members of the NI Alliance Partner Network who have specialised skills in custom electronics for clients wishing to extend and customise NI reconfigurable input/output (RIO) hardware products — such as NI CompactRIO, NI Single-Board RIO and NI FlexRIO — for advanced control, testing and monitoring applications.
Product brochure: electronics manufacturing service from Trojan Electronics download
Trojan Electronics provides a contract manufacturing service for a range of products, including printed circuit boards, cable assemblies and electromechanical assemblies. The company can also carry out complete product builds.
Postponement manufacturing for forecast challenges
The Paragon Electronics Group is helping customers to respond to forecasting challenges with its range of postponement manufacturing services.
JJS delivers comprehensive EMS services
JJS delivers a full range of EMS services, including design for test, design for manufacturing, PCB assembly, box build assembly, precision mechanical assembly and full system assembly.
JJS uses lean to cut time, cost and complexity
JJS possesses a special proficiency in non-electronics based precision mechanical assembly techniques, known as mechatronics.
