Minus K receives more JWST orders for negative-stiffness vibration isolators

Nov. 28, 2012

After completing the initial order for negative-stiffness vibration isolators for JWST ground testing, Minus K Technology has received the complete order.

Gail Overton

Minus K negative-stiffness vibration isolators will be used for ground testing of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Inglewood, CA--After completing the order for the first of six negative-stiffness vibration isolators to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) project in February 2012, Minus K Technology has now received the order to provide vibration isolators numbers two through six for JWST ground testing at the Johnson Space Center.

The JWST will be placed in a thermal vacuum chamber at the Johnson Space Center and supported by a set of six custom Minus K vibration isolators. "The isolators will utilize Minus K's new thermal compensator device, a passive mechanical device (patent pending), requiring no air or electricity just like our isolators." says David Platus, president of Minus K and principal inventor of the patented negative-stiffness technology. "The compensator will adjust the isolators as the temperature changes throughout the testing at JSC, keeping the JWST in the proper position."

The JWST is a large-aperture infrared space telescope that has a large mirror, 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) in diameter and a sunshield the size of a tennis court. The JWST is planned to be launched from Arianespace's ELA-3 launch complex at European Spaceport located near Kourou, French Guiana in 2018 aboard an Ariane 5 launch vehicle.

Minus K Technology says it works with many aerospace and education laboratories for custom vibration isolation systems and has manufactured isolators for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), German Center for Aerospace (DLR), and the European Space Research and Technology Centre/European Space Agency (ESTEC/ESA) in addition to the JWST custom isolators for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

SOURCE: Minus K Technology; www.minusk.com/content/in-the-news/JWSTPress_1112.html

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.