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NASA engineers assembled the two halves of the Webb telescope.
The team was able to assemble the actual Webb telescope (the part of the craft that includes mirrors and scientific instruments) with the rest of the space shuttle and its sunshade. The next step is to connect and test all the electronics of the different parts.
James Webb, assembled
"The assembly of the telescope and its scientific instruments, the sun visor and the probe into an observatory represents an incredible feat for the entire Webb team," said Bill Ochs, webb project leader at Goddard NASA Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The James Webb Telescope is the result of 20 years of work by thousands of people from NASA, the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, Northrop Grumman, and other industry and academic organizations.
Yesterday, the team used a crane to slowly and gently guide the telescope to its location, while ensuring that all points of contact were properly aligned and seated.
Then they will fully deploy the complex sun visor to five layers of the craft. This sun visor is designed to keep Webb's mirrors and scientific instruments cool by blocking infrared light from the Earth, Moon or Sun.
All the main components of the craft were tested individually in all the environments they would encounter during the mission: rocket launch and mission in orbit millions of kilometers from the Earth. Now that Webb is a fully assembled observatory, additional environment and deployment tests are required to ensure the success of the mission.
Since the mission depends on the heat shield that can be deployed – and deployed in the proper form – NASA wants to test its functionality on the assembled ship as quickly as possible.
"It's an exciting time to see all Webb parties finally gathered in one observatory for the very first time," said Gregory Robinson, director of the Webb program at NASA's headquarters in Washington, DC.
"The engineering team has taken a big step forward and we will soon see incredible new views of our amazing universe."
The launch of the James Webb space shuttle is scheduled for 2021. It will become the most powerful space science observatory in the world.
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