The launch of the most powerful space telescope in the world, James Webb Space Telescope, is only the beginning of this space-based observatory. After leaving the atmosphere of the earth and traveling more than 250,000 miles away from our planet, now more than 70% of the road to the last orbit around the sun (through NASA).
The telescope must do more than traveling. Many observatory components need to help it take the most accurate readings, but there are only a limited number in rockets. After the telescope is released into space, it is necessary to spread itself into the final configuration.
The observatory recently reached a big milestone when finishing mobilizing a five-tier Sunshield, which is the size of a tennis court and needs to be pulled into place. Now, continue to be revealed with a secondary mirror and heat radiator, and can take the next big challenge: open the extraordinary hexagonal primary mirror. Friday, January 7, the engineers began the main mirror opening process. Consisting of 18 hexagonal segments, gold plated, mirror is one of the most striking telescope components. The main mirror needs to be large because it is directly related to how much the light can be detected by the telescope, which makes it more accurate (through NASA). Mirror James Webb is 6.5 meters (21 feet), which is the largest ever launched into space. Compared to a 2.4 meter mirror (7.8 feet) used in its predecessor James Webb, the Hubble room telescope, this large mirror will help the telescope to look further into space.
Engineers cannot just build a mirror of 6.5 meters (21ft) like Hubble, because it will be too big and too heavy to launch. Instead, they built the Mirror James Webb in the segment made of beryllium, which is light and strong. These segments are folded in themselves to fit the rockets, and now it’s time for them to open their final configuration.
So far, according to NASA, the engineers have deployed one of the two main mirror wings, which is a side panel that holds the mirror in its place. The deployment of the port side mirror wing began at 8:36 ET and finished at 14:11 ET.
The next phase is the spread of the right wing, which is planned for the weekend. Then the telescope must be fully deployed into the formal form, ready to continue his journey to the orbit.