Spreading its mirror wings was the telescope’s last big step in its complicated deployment.
NASA has pulled off the most technically audacious part of bringing its newest flagship observatory online: unfolding it.
On Saturday, Jan. 8, the operations team for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) announced that the observatory’s primary mirror had successfully unfolded its segments — the last major step of the telescope’s complicated deployment.
The moment was a euphoric moment of validation for the entire team. “We’re on an incredible high right now,” said Bill Ochs, JWST’s project manager, at a press conference. “Today represents the beginning of a journey for this incredible machine, to its discoveries that we’ll be making in the future.”