NASA Invites Media Inside World's Largest Vacuum Chamber

March 21, 2013

J.D. Harrington
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-5241
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

Brandi Dean
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
brandi.k.dean@nasa.gov


MEDIA ADVISORY: M13-050

NASA INVITES MEDIA INSIDE WORLD'S LARGEST VACUUM CHAMBER



HOUSTON -- The world's largest thermal-vacuum chamber will be open to
news media at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston on Thursday,
April 4.

Upgrades are being made to the facility to prepare it for testing the
agency's James Webb Space Telescope. Scientists plan to use the Webb
telescope to see further back into history than ever before.

Attendees will be able to learn about the facility upgrades and the
role they will have in preparing the Webb telescope. Media interested
in attending should email Brandi Dean at brandi.k.dean@nasa.gov.
International media must apply for credentials by 5 p.m., March 27.
U.S. reporters should respond by 5 p.m., April 3.

Webb telescope scientists and Johnson chamber technicians will be
available for interviews during the media opportunity. The site is
designated a clean room, so all media entering the chamber will be
provided with specialized clothing.

Johnson's 400,000 cubic foot vacuum chamber, Chamber A, was built in
1965 to conduct thermal-vacuum testing of the Apollo Command Module
and Service Module. In addition to the Apollo modules, Chamber A has
been used in component tests for Apollo-Soyuz, Skylab, space shuttle,
International Space Station, Department of Defense communication
antennas and various other large-scale satellite systems.

Since 2007, the chamber has been significantly modified to support
testing of the Webb telescope the agency's successor to the Hubble
Space Telescope. Scheduled to launch in 2018, it will fly in deep
space orbit more than a million miles from Earth. To ensure it will
function in the extreme environment of space, Chamber A will be
equipped with instruments to measure and evaluate the shape and focus
of the mirrors.

As the most powerful space telescope ever built, the Webb telescope
will observe the most distant objects in the universe, provide images
of the first galaxies ever formed, and see unexplored planets around
distant stars. The telescope is a joint project of NASA, the European
Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

For more information on telescope and to follow the mission, visit:


http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/


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