Humanity’s Most Powerful Telescope: All Flight Parts Under One Roof
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will become the world’s most powerful observatory, and is expected to generate answers to scientific questions the human species hasn’t even thought to ask yet. By using ultra-sensitive infrared instruments to explore and observe a period of cosmic history after the Big Bang that no one has ever seen, Webb promises to yield untold discovery, improvements to our scientific understanding, and world changing imagery akin to the other great telescopes like Hubble, Chandra, and Spitzer. Webb will be a quantum leap forward in NASA’s quest to understand where and how humans fit in the universe, while also serving as a masthead for the world’s combined efforts in astrophysics.
With over 100 involved companies, agencies and contractor groups worldwide, Webb’s hardware and scientific instruments have crisscrossed the United States visiting various historic, and state of the art testing facilities to ensure they are flight-ready. In a symbolic step forward earlier this year, all primary components of Webb were moved to reside under one roof in Redondo Beach, California. They will stay here until fully assembled, cleared for launch, and shipped to the Guiana Space Centre near Kourou, in French Guiana.
Pictured: Technicians work to prepare Webb’s spacecraft element for continued testing to ensure flawless performance while in space before it is assembled to the rest of the observatory next year. The spacecraft element is composed of the observatory’s revolutionary five-layer sunshield designed to block sunlight from interfering with its sensitive telescope instruments and the spacecraft bus which houses the observatory’s vital internal systems. Webb’s combined iconic gold plated optical element and Integrated Science Instrument Module can be seen in the rear.
The James Webb Space Telescope will be the world's premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries of our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international project led by NASA with its partners, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
Image credit: Northrop Grumman
Caption credit: Thaddeus Cesari
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