Too Big for the Door: How Engineers Installed a NASA Space Telescope Test Chamber

NASA’s upcoming SPHEREx space telescope needs a custom-built test chamber to make sure its cutting-edge instruments are ready to operate in space.

The telescope will create a 3D map of the entire sky. And even though the telescope’s test chamber didn’t exactly travel cosmic distances, its journey to Caltech required careful orchestration.

Built by the Korean Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI), the chamber required three years of design and construction, a monthlong boat ride across the Pacific Ocean, and a 30-ton crane to reach its destination at the university’s Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pasadena, California.