While people around the world were getting tucked into bed ahead of Christmas Day, NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency were starting a hugely ambitious mission.
The James Webb Space Telescope has been 10 years in the making and has cost millions of dollars to complete. On 24th December, the telescope was launched aboard an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket.
While the journey to its final destination is not yet complete, the James Webb Space Telescope has achieved a monumental milestone. The massive 6 metre golden mirror that forms part of the telescopes iconic structure has been unfolded.
The mirror needed to be folded up to fit in the nose cone of the rocket it launched on. The unfolding of the mirror took two days according to NASA. The first half was deployed in 7th January and the second on 8th January.
A team working on the telescope will now begin moving the 18 mirror segments to align the telescope optics using 126 actuators to do so. These actuators are located on the backsides of the mirror panels and alignment is said to take months to complete.
While that is being done, the telescope is still on course toward its final destination. The craft will undergo a third mid-course correction burn to place it precisely in orbit around Lagrange Point L2. The telescope’s sun shield is expected to shield the telescope’s sensitive infrared instruments from contamination caused by light from the Sun, Earth and Moon.
“The James Webb Space Telescope is an unprecedented mission that is on the precipice of seeing the light from the first galaxies and discovering the mysteries of our universe. Each feat already achieved and future accomplishment is a testament to the thousands of innovators who poured their life’s passion into this mission,” NASA administrator, Bill Nelson said in a statement.
It will be many months before we can start seeing observations from the James Webb Space Telescope but it looks as if everything is on track for the telescope to help us see back in time and potentially help answer some of the oldest questions about the universe and our own solar system.
