The James Webb space telescope, which was launched at Christmas, ended its two-week unfolding phase with the unfolding of a last mirror plate and will soon be ready for exploring the universe. “The last wing is now unfolded,” NASA announced yesterday on Twitter. The team is now working on “anchoring the wing in its place”, a process that takes several hours.
“Before we celebrate, we still have a lot to do,” NASA continued. The telescope is only ready for use when the last anchorage has been successful.
Folded for transport
An Ariane 5 rocket brought the successor to the legendary Hubble telescope into space from the spaceport in Kourou in French Guiana on Christmas Day. The James Webb Telescope is to explore the early days of the universe 13 billion years ago and thus only a few hundred million years following the Big Bang.
Because the telescope was too big for the Ariane 5 rocket, it had to be folded up before launch. The unfolding in space was a complex and risky process, which had caused the NASA officials a lot of concern in advance.
