The powerful James Webb space telescope successfully completed the final stage of its deployment this Saturday (8), unfolding its last main mirror and preparing to begin studying each phase of the history of the Universe.
The first of its two wings was released yesterday, and the second on Saturday morning, NASA announced.
Engineering teams at the Space Telescope Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, celebrated the moment NASA tweeted that the final wing was ready. “The final wing is now deployed,” the agency tweeted, adding that the team worked “to secure the wing in place, a multi-hour process.”
This iconic telescope’s main mirror is about 6.5m in diameter, so it was too big to accommodate a rocket, as it was when it launched two weeks ago. Because of this, its two sides were bent.
Deployment was a complex and challenging task, NASA said, noting that it is the most daunting project it has ever attempted.
Webb, the most powerful space telescope ever built and successor to Hubble, took off from French Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket on December 25 and headed for its orbital point, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
Although Webb will arrive at its space destination, known as the second Lagrange point, in weeks, it still has five and a half months of setup to complete.
first galaxies
Its infrared technology allows it to see the first stars and galaxies that formed 13.5 billion years ago, giving astronomers a new perspective on the Universe’s first epoch.
“Before celebrating, we still have work to do,” NASA expressed in its live updates. “Once the final lock is secure, NASA Webb will be fully deployed into space,” he said.
Earlier this week, the telescope deployed its five-layer heat shield, a 21 m-long device that acts as a sunshade, which ensures that Webb’s instruments stay in the shade so they can detect faint infrared signals from the ends of the Universe.
The telescope’s mission includes studying distant planets to determine their origin, evolution and habitability.
NASA’s blog about the telescope said Saturday that the procedure was “the last of the observatory’s major deployments. According to the space agency’s deputy chief of design for the telescope, John Durning, the deployments were “100% successful.”
“That was probably the most risky part of the mission,” Bill Ochs, NASA’s project director for Webb, told a news conference. “That doesn’t mean all our risk is over.”
According to the NASA blog, “its success will allow the development of the next five and a half months of tasks, which consist of establishing a stable operating temperature, aligning the mirrors and calibrating the scientific instruments”.
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