Webb Space Telescope’s engineers successfully deployed a critical phase in the multi-stage process of unfolding the telescope observatory at 600,000 miles from Earth on Wednesday.
Bill Ochs, Webb project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, called it “another banner day” for Webb, which had a perfect launch on Dec. 25. With the successful deployment of the observatory’s secondary mirror support structure, he added, “we actually have a telescope.” Without it, the telescope would not be able to operate.
The deployment and latching in place of the secondary mirror took nearly two hours. The entire process was webcast (below) and viewers were able to watch a computer-generated visualization that is accurate because of actual telemetry from the Webb observatory in space. NASA has also provided a full timeline of its deployment processes.
The 2.4-foot secondary mirror rides at the end of three struts and takes light from the 18 gold primary mirrors and directs it into Webb’s sophisticated instruments.
The successful deployment of the secondary mirror structure came one day after engineers fully tensioned a five-layer sunshield.
Webb is on its way to a spot called L2 about 1 million miles from Earth. Over the next several months, engineers will conduct tests to allow full operation of the telescope. Images may emerge in six months although astronomers will begin receiving data and images in about a year.
Astronomers have hundreds of research projects connected to Webb, including some that will research the origins of black holes, while others hope to research the chemical makeup of distant stars and exoplanets, some estimated to be 13 billion lightyears from Earth. Work on Webb has been underway for more than two decades at a total cost of about $10 billion.
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