CT-made equipment deployed aboard new NASA space telescope

Simsbury-based Ensign-Bickford Aerospace & Defense said it supplied mechanisms used to deploy key components aboard NASA’s newest space telescope, now traveling to a point more than 1 million miles from Earth. The company said its equipment helped release the booms, covers and solar-array hardware aboard the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The telescope was launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Aug. 30. It’s on its way to a region of space called the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2. NASA says scientists will use the observatory to investigate dark energy and dark matter, study billions of galaxies, discover and characterize exoplanets, and explore the formation and history of the universe. Roman’s field of view will be at least 100 times larger than the Hubble telescope, which was launched into low Earth orbit more than 30 years ago, allowing it to survey the sky much faster while maintaining sharp infrared vision. The equipment supplied by EBAD includes pin pullers that supported the release of Roman’s cover and other assemblies. A pin puller holds hardware securely during launch, then retracts its pin on command so the restrained equipment can move into position. The company says one of the challenges is to optimize the mechanism to operate in the extremely cold environment in space. EBAD also supplied mechanism release technology for the James Webb space telescope, deployed by NASA in 2021. The Roman telescope is named in honor of Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first chief of astronomy, widely known as the "Mother of Hubble" for her vital role in developing space telescopes.