NASA is currently aligning the 18 gold-coated mirrors on the $10 billion James Webb space telescope (JWST), the world’s largest and most powerful technology of its kind. JWST was launched this past Christmas and will soon open a whole new chapter in space research: The telescope will help scientists examine the most distant planets in detail and investigate the dawn of the universe.
It took a massive undertaking to deliver JWST, which weighs over 7 tons, to its current spot a million miles from Earth. Only the Ariane 5 rocket is powerful enough to lift such a heavy load — but even Ariane is not big enough to contain it. So the huge telescope had to be folded up to fit in, thus making a very complicated telescope even more so.
Before the launch could even occur, JWST had to be packed into a huge protective container called STTARS (Space ...
