Engineers at BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado, have fitted all 864 solar cells onto the sunshade of NEO Surveyor and have decided that every person entering the assembly building must now pass beneath the six-meter structure before beginning work. The rule took effect this week and applies to contractors, visitors and senior managers alike.
The shade is the tallest part of the spacecraft and, according to the programme team, must be checked by eye from directly underneath before any technician may touch the instruments. Staff have been issued hard hats and given a written timetable that lists which hour each team is due under the panels. Lunch breaks have been moved to accommodate the queue.
"A sunshade that cannot be walked under is a sunshade we do not trust," said Dana Okafor, who leads the clean-room schedule. "Every one of those cells is going to generate two kilowatts, and I want every person in this building to have looked up at them at least once."
Officials at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the policy is not an official requirement but has been adopted voluntarily by the team, which has also begun measuring the shade's temperature each morning with a handheld sensor. The telescope itself is scheduled to launch no earlier than September 2027, and the team has said the inspection routine will continue until then.