NASA's James Webb overcomes last hurdle
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The most powerful space telescope ever engineered completed its two-week deployment phase on Saturday.
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The telescope originally blasted off on December 25 (sciencefocus.com)
NASA celebrated the complete deployment of James Webb, the most powerful space telescope ever engineered, on Saturday.
During the live video broadcast that stargazers watched, Thomas Zurbuchen, a senior NASA engineer, said he was "emotional about it--what an amazing milestone."
"I want to tell you just how excited and emotional I am right now...We have a deployed telescope on orbit."
Due to the spacious design of the telescope, it was deployed folded, making the unfolding a perilous process dubbed NASA's "most challenging deployment program ever done by NASA," according to engineer Mike Menzel.
#NASAWebb is fully deployed! 🎉
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) January 8, 2022
With the successful deployment & latching of our last mirror wing, that's:
50 major deployments, complete.
178 pins, released.
20+ years of work, realized.
Next to #UnfoldTheUniverse: traveling out to our orbital destination of Lagrange point 2! pic.twitter.com/mDfmlaszzV
Engineers from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, delivered an order for the last part of the golden mirror to unfold on Saturday morning.
According to NASA, after the mirror was hooked into the position, the team declared "all major deployments successfully completed."
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NASA's James Webb launch complete
James Webb Telescope sunshield deployed
The James Webb Space Telescope had fully deployed its sunshield on January 4, marking a critical milestone for the success of its mission to study every phase of cosmic history, NASA said in a statement.
James Webb is the successor to the Hubble. It blasted off on December 25.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson revealed before the completion of the telescope's journey, "I join the Webb team in breathing a little easier and imagining the future breakthroughs bound to inspire the world."
Its infrared technology will allow it to study every phase of cosmic history and see the first stars and galaxies that formed 13.5 billion years ago.
According to the NASA blog, the telescope will continue its "commissioning", for the next five months which means it will settle into "stable operating temperature, align mirrors, and calibrate the science instruments."
NASA is expected to release numerous "wow images," according to Jane Rigby, a NASA project scientist.
