Flight International online news 10:30GMT: EADS Astrium has completed mechanical tests on the world's largest space telescope, Herschel.
With a primary mirror diameter of 3.5m, Herschel is the largest space telescope ever constructed - Hubble's primary mirror was 2.4m wide. It is now en route to the "Centre Spatial de Liège" in Belgium for final thermal tests.
Planned for launch in 2007, the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory (formerly called Far InfraRed and Submillimetre Telescope or FIRST) will be the first of a new generation of space telescopes - bigger than any of its predecessors at approximately 7 metres high and 4.3 metres wide.
It will be located 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth, around the second Lagrangian point, farther than any previous space telescope.
Herschel, made from lightweight silicon-carbide, is intended to collect the light from distant and poorly known objects, such as newborn galaxies thousands of millions of light-years away.
ROSS BENTLEY/LONDON
Source: Flight International