Space Rock Strike on Webb Telescope Was Just Bad Luck, NASA Team Says - Gizmodo
“Even after this event our current optical performance is still twice as good as our requirements,” said Mike Menzel, Webb lead mission systems engineer at NASA, in an agency release.The new analysis—conducted by a group of NASA experts, the telescope’s mirror manufacturer, and the Space Telescope Science Institute—indicates the latter.
“Micrometeoroids that strike the mirror head on (moving opposite the direction the telescope is moving) have twice the relative velocity and four times the kinetic energy, so avoiding this direction when feasible will help extend the exquisite optical performance for decades,” said Lee Feinberg, Webb optical telescope element manager at NASA Goddard, in an agency release