The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is NASA’s long-planned – and long-delayed – successor to Hubble. But after a recent spate of testing to mimic the extremes of space, it’s looking like the telescope is still on track for its 2021 launch date.
The telescope itself, along with its instrumentation, passed many of its final tests last year, before being delivered to Northrup Grumman in Los Angeles. Now the spacecraft part of the satellite has also finished similar tests, ensuring that it can safely withstand the violent temperature swings and zero-pressure environment in space.
JWST will be a huge leap forward for space telescopes. With a mirror 6.5 times the area of Hubble’s, JWST will be able to see farther and with greater precision than its predecessor.
But the upcoming observatory is too big to fit into any current rockets in its final form. So engineers have had to design ...
