The James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s premier space observatory for following decade, is on point for final completion this week, which was published in a report. A primary mirror segment, one of 18 telescopes, was installed onto a support framework at Goddard Space Flight Center. Additional optics must be attached and the telescope must subsequently undergo feasibility testing to confirm it can handle lift off. The rocket is scheduled for launch in late 2018.
The JWST will essentially be a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror. The supplemental mirrors, hexagon in shape, each weighs 40 kg and spans 1.3 meters. The telescope will be located to the second Lagrange point of the Earth-Sun system, which is roughly 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. From this point on, it will commence observations.
Lee Feinberg, the optical telescope element manager at Goddard, sums up, “Completing the assembly of the primary mirror is a very significant milestone and the culmination of over a decade of design, manufacturing, testing, and now assembly of the primary mirror system,” and adds, “There is a huge team across the country who contributed to this achievement.”
The JWST’s completion is a milestone. It was first visualized in 1996 as a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope with a budget of only $500 million in funding and then bloated to $8.8 billion because of cost overruns and delays resulting in a backlash from scientists and other critics because NASA’s general financing was strangled to accommodate the additional costs.
Nonetheless, once the telescope becomes operational, it will provide a detailed look into the firmament. JWST’s telescope overlooks Hubble’s 2.4-meter telescope, and will analyze imagery primarily within the near-infrared area of the spectrum. Its designed to search for light emissions from the universe’s ancient stars and to gain a better perspective on the formation of space systems.