NASA marks major milestone, successfully deploys James Webb telescope in space

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope team on Saturday, Jan. 8 fully deployed its 21-foot, gold-coated primary mirror, successfully completing the final stage of all major spacecraft deployments to prepare for science operations. The deployment involved a joint effort with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency. The James Webb mission will explore every phase of cosmic history – from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe, according to NASA. Mission Operations Center ground control at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore began deploying the second side panel of the mirror at 8:53 am, informed Webb team. 

“Today, NASA achieved another engineering milestone decades in the making. While the journey is not complete, I join the Webb team in breathing a little easier and imagining the future breakthroughs bound to inspire the world,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a release. “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,” he added. Furthermore he said that each feat “already achieved and future accomplishment is a testament to the thousands of innovators who poured their life’s passion into this mission.”

Unfolded hexagonal segments of primary mirror, a week after 

James Webb’s two wings of the primary mirror had been folded to fit inside the nose cone of an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket prior to launch. At least after a week of other critical spacecraft deployments, the Webb team on Friday began to remotely unfold the hexagonal segments of the primary mirror. This, thus far, would be the largest ever launched into space and was a multi-day process. The first side deployed on Jan. 7 and the second on Jan. 8.

“I am so proud of the team – spanning continents and decades – that delivered this first-of-its-kind achievement,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate in NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Webb’s successful deployment exemplifies the best of what NASA has to offer: the willingness to attempt bold and challenging things in the name of discoveries still unknown.” Webb will now undergo a third mid-course correction burn – one of three planned to place the telescope precisely in orbit around the second Lagrange point, commonly known as L2, nearly 1 million miles from Earth.