The James Webb Space Telescope has successfully deployed all five layers of its tennis-court-sized sunshield.
Summary
- The James Webb Space Telescope has successfully deployed all five layers of its tennis-court-sized sunshield, a prerequisite for the telescope’s science operations and the most nerve-wracking part of its risky deployment.
- “Yesterday, we did not think we were going to get through the first three layers,” Keith Parrish, the observatory manager for the James Webb Space Telescope, said in a live NASA webcast during today’s deployment.
- The James Webb Space Telescope is designed to study the universe in the infrared wavelengths and therefore has to be extremely cold for its sensitive detectors to work as designed.
- The James Webb Space Telescope is heading for what is known as the Earth-sun Lagrange Point 2 (L2) some 930,000 miles (1.5 million km) away from the planet.
- The James Webb Space Telescope will thus orbit the sun, permanently aligned with Earth, hiding from the star’s scorching rays.