How Webb telescope development led to improved simulation software

The James Webb House Telescope really explores the unknown, displaying beautiful pictures of beforehand unseen corners of the universe solely attainable due to the telescope’s 21-foot segmented mirror that unfurled and assembled itself in space.

A long time of testing went into the supplies, design, and processes wanted to develop the most important telescope in space. Nonetheless, the entire challenge was too advanced to check on the bottom, at scale, at –400°F, and in different space-like circumstances.

As an alternative, engineers relied on software simulations to grasp how the telescope would behave underneath completely different in-space circumstances, and that work has helped advance the entire subject of built-in pc modeling.

“We pushed all the things, all of the simulation, simply as arduous as it might go,” stated Erin Elliott, an optical engineer at Ansys, Inc., which makes Ansys Zemax OpticStudio, one of many design software program suites used to develop {hardware} and software program for the Webb telescope.

Simulation know-how has improved dramatically over the past twenty years due to will increase in computing energy and new methods of accessing offsite computing energy as a cloud service. However extra enhancements hint again on to Webb’s improvement.

Elliott used OpticStudio to help the Webb telescope whereas working for different NASA contractors, starting within the early 2000s, earlier than beginning work in 2015 for Zemax—which later turned Ansys Zemax—headquartered in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.

Within the early days, Elliott stated, Zemax tweaked its software program for the Webb telescope effort. “They made some particular modifications for us on the time having to do with dealing with the coordinate programs of the segments,” she stated, referring to the 18 hexagonal segments that make up the telescope’s main mirror.

Elliott additionally recalled speaking to Zemax management quite a few occasions concerning the want for the software program to speak higher with different Microsoft Home windows packages. The corporate launched an API, or application programming interface, for OpticStudio, which allows the suite to work with different packages and permits for additional customization. There have been loads of causes so as to add that know-how however Webb calls for had been seemingly important amongst them, Elliott stated.

Joseph Howard, an optical engineer at NASA’s Goddard House Flight Middle in Greenbelt, Maryland, the place Webb and its science instrument module had been assembled, famous that utilizing a number of modeling packages helped drive innovation within the subject. “It is vital to have a number of software companies on the market that may assist you not just for cross-checking the modeling, however as a result of they make one another higher by competitors,” he stated.

Along with enhancements made to OpticStudio throughout Webb telescope improvement, Ansys Zemax in 2021 launched the Structural, Thermal, Evaluation, and Outcomes (STAR) module, which benefited from the information Elliott gained engaged on the NASA challenge.

When a mirror or lens modifications form as a result of temperature swings, the optics transfer. A lot of the OpticStudio modeling was accomplished in smaller pieces—engineers would run a thermal simulation independently and add that information to the subsequent optical mannequin, producing extra information for the subsequent run.

The STAR module incorporates analyses from different simulation software program straight into OpticStudio optical fashions—an effectivity relevant to telescope and aerospace designs. This function can also be more and more vital for autonomous autos, mobile phone lenses, and different optics working in powerful environments.

Future telescopes and different spacecraft are prone to contain parts of the Webb design. Extra will journey in segments that should self-assemble in space, and the event of the more and more difficult robotics and optics will depend on improved modeling software program.

“After we constructed Webb, we knew we could not totally check it on the bottom previous to flight, so we depended a complete lot upon modeling and doing evaluation to prepare for flight,” Howard stated. “The following nice observatory can be much more depending on modeling software program.”

In the meantime, designers of extra Earthly applied sciences are already seeing the advantages of an improved OpticStudio, utilizing it to design precision endoscopes, a thermal imager to detect COVID-19 exposures in a crowd, augmented actuality shows and headsets, a laser thruster know-how for nanosatellites, and, after all, extra telescopes.

Elliott additionally famous that the Webb telescope challenge educated the subsequent cohort of telescope and optical gadget builders—these designing and utilizing the telescope’s technological spinoffs.

“The individuals who constructed the Hubble House Telescope had been main the Webb Telescope,” she stated. “And now the youthful engineers who lower our enamel on this challenge and realized from it have gotten the group of people that will construct the subsequent constructions.”

Elliott maintains that the challenge “was price it alone for coaching this big cohort of younger engineers and releasing them into high-tech fields.”