{"id":191867,"date":"2025-03-28T05:00:50","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T19:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?guid=cb8ac58176b0ba78f6bdd9ad606f7d49"},"modified":"2025-03-28T05:00:50","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T19:00:50","slug":"neo-surveyor-instrument-enclosure-inside-historic-chamber-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=191867","title":{"rendered":"NEO Surveyor Instrument Enclosure Inside Historic Chamber A\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"\" class=\"hds-media hds-module wp-block-image\">\n<div class=\"margin-left-auto margin-right-auto nasa-block-align-inline\">\n<div class=\"hds-media-wrapper margin-left-auto margin-right-auto\">\n<figure class=\"hds-media-inner hds-cover-wrapper hds-media-ratio-none \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/pia26583orig.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1536\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/pia26583orig.jpg?w=2048\" class=\"attachment-2048x2048 size-2048x2048\" alt=\"A picture of a massive, silver, statuesque piece of hardware inside a cavernous testing chamber. The image is mostly dark, with an illuminated section in the lower center half of the picture. The hardware has two large, vertical silver metal posts on either side of it, and two silver metal posts that cross horizontally between them. In the center of those posts is a large portion of silver thermal blanketing that is gathered toward the middle. White lights shine upward from the base of either side of the hardware. A line of six, small, white lights with a blueish starburst effect crown the hardware.\" style=\"transform: scale(1); transform-origin: 50% 50%; object-position: 50% 50%; object-fit: cover;\" block_context=\"nasa-block\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/pia26583orig.jpg 11173w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/pia26583orig.jpg?resize=300,225 300w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/pia26583orig.jpg?resize=768,576 768w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/pia26583orig.jpg?resize=1024,768 1024w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/pia26583orig.jpg?resize=1536,1152 1536w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/pia26583orig.jpg?resize=2048,1536 2048w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/pia26583orig.jpg?resize=400,300 400w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/pia26583orig.jpg?resize=600,450 600w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/pia26583orig.jpg?resize=900,675 900w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/pia26583orig.jpg?resize=1200,900 1200w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/pia26583orig.jpg?resize=2000,1500 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\" loading=\"eager\" \/><\/a><\/figure><figcaption class=\"hds-caption padding-y-2\">\n<div class=\"hds-credits\">NASA<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The instrument enclosure of NASA\u2019s Near-Earth Object Surveyor is prepared for critical environmental tests inside the historic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/setmo\/facilities\/thermal-vacuum-chamber-a\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Chamber A<\/a> at the Space Environment Simulation Laboratory at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston in December 2024. Wrapped in silver thermal blanketing, the 12-foot-long (3.7-meter-long) angular structure was subjected to the frigid, airless conditions that the spacecraft will experience when in deep space. The cavernous thermal-vacuum test facility is famous for testing the Apollo spacecraft that traveled to the Moon in the 1960s and \u201970s.<\/p>\n<p>The instrument enclosure is designed to protect the spacecraft\u2019s infrared telescope while also removing heat from it during operations. After environmental testing was completed, the enclosure returned to NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California for further work, after which it will ship to the Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) in Logan, Utah, and be joined to the telescope. Both the instrument enclosure and telescope were assembled at JPL.<\/p>\n<p>As NASA\u2019s first space-based detection mission specifically designed for <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/planetary-defense\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">planetary defense<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/neo-surveyor\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">NEO Surveyor<\/a> will seek out, measure, and characterize the hardest-to-find asteroids and comets that might pose a hazard to Earth. While many near-Earth objects don\u2019t reflect much visible light, they glow brightly in infrared light due to heating by the Sun. The spacecraft\u2019s telescope, which has an aperture of nearly 20 inches (50 centimeters), features detectors sensitive to two infrared wavelengths in which near-Earth objects re-radiate solar heat.<\/p>\n<p>More information about NEO Surveyor is available at: <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/neo-surveyor\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/neo-surveyor\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Image credit: NASA<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The instrument enclosure of NASA\u2019s Near-Earth Object Surveyor is prepared for critical environmental tests inside the historic Chamber A at the Space Environment Simulation Laboratory at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston in December 2024. Wrapped in silver thermal blanketing, the 12-foot-long (3.7-meter-long) angular structure was subjected to the frigid, airless conditions that the spacecraft [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15634,16108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-johnson-space-center","category-neo-surveyor-near-earth-object-surveyor-space-telescope"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=191867"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191877,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191867\/revisions\/191877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=191867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=191867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=191867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}