The deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope has been completed, which is an important and significant achievement for NASA.
The US space agency still has a very extensive mission schedule. Some of them are more impressive, more important, one might say, than others, this is obvious, but each time these are stages that count towards space exploration as a whole. So many small steps to better knowledge, to new technologies for Humanity. Recently, the James Webb Space Telescope has attracted increasing interest. And the American agency notes a good success today.
James Webb Space Telescope completed deployment
NASA is closer than ever to commissioning its James Webb Space Telescope. The US Space Agency has just successfully deployed a gold-coated primary mirror, thus completing all major deployments of this unique instrument. The team behind the project has yet to align the telescope’s optics by moving the various segments of the primary mirror (which should take about a month), but either way, it’s a strong indication that this $10 billion device is perfectly healthy, so to speak.
An important and significant success for NASA
The James Webb Space Telescope also requires a third correction in its trajectory to reach the L2 Lagrange point between the Earth and the Sun. Astronomers use this very important moment to study infrared light without interference, which can give them new knowledge about the origin of the universe, which is not possible with Hubble or any other similar equipment.
The first images from the telescope will not reach us until summer, and it may be even longer before these images turn into possible significant discoveries. That being said, the deployment itself is a significant success, a clear success. With the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA successfully deployed a sophisticated observatory in space for the first time. This shows that such projects are quite viable, even if they are not expected to multiply in the near future.