KerbalX

Album contains 11 pictures.
V2 - Appearance adjustment of the primary mirror, so that it looks more segmented instead of like a whole.
V1.1 - Added missing membranes between primary mirror and Instrument Module. (See the 2 screenshots in SPH)

Busy by the end of semester, but KSP is always great for relaxing…Anyway, this is my take on the legendary JWST.

Main references

(highly recommended to check out!)
Launch and deployment animation on YouTube
Interactive 3D model
Interactive 3D model
Comprehensive FAQ
Wikipedia page

Design Notes

• The parabolic mirror surface took me quite a while to build, glad I finally made it. It has a diameter of ~5.5m, the real size is 6.5m.
• It has ~360m/s of vacuum dV with a TWR of ~0.12 in Kerbin SOI.
• Its root part is a small battery bank in the center of primary mirror. It’s chosen for ease of building but is tricky to find. Press 4 and reroot to any other part you like.
• There is a Sentinel telescope behind the primary mirror plus some science instruments, so it’s not useless in game.
• But it’s not practical due to weight and cost. IRL the sun shield is made of super thin membranes, but on this craft there is a huge amount of solid structure panels.
• I’m aware that JWST has 5 layers of sun shield membrane instead of 4 on this craft, but giving it another layer would break the part count of 500, and it just looks not very different. So I made this compromise. If you want, just hold Alt and click on the plate indicated in the last screenshot, it’s easy to copy and paste this layer.

Action Groups

AG1=horizontal control point
AG2=vertical control point (default, in line with engine thrust)
AG8=conduct experiments
AG0=engine on/off

Launch

Alt+F12 to set orbit.
I thought about making it to be able to fold/unfold but gave up due to the complexity, so it can’t be launched like IRL.
I’ll try to build a large lifter for it, but no promise on that…

Wish you enjoy and happy launching on schedule!

Description

A stock aircraft called James Webb Space Telescope. Built with 469 of the finest parts, its root part is EquiTriangle0.

Built in the SPH in KSP version 1.8.1.

Details

• Type: SPH
• Class: probe
• Part Count: 469
• Pure Stock