Skip to main content

James Webb Space Telescope successfully deploys its huge sunshield

The James Webb Space Telescope has successfully unfurled its massive sunshield, marking the completion of a major step in its deployment as the observatory moves toward full operations.

The most powerful space telescope ever built launched atop an Ariane 5 rocket on December 25. At the time of writing, Webb has traveled 575,000 miles and is 65% of the distance to its destination orbit, which it’s expected to reach toward the end of this month.

Recommended Videos

News of the sunshield’s successful deployment was shared by NASA early evening Pacific time on Tuesday, January 4. The crucial maneuver to unfurl the 47-foot-wide shield took several days to complete, with the last step involving a tensioning process that stretched each of its five layers into their final position.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

If anything had gone wrong with the sunshield’s deployment, it could have signaled the end of a $10 billion mission that’s been decades in the making.

The next big moment involves the opening up of the all-important primary mirror that will enable the observatory to peer into space so it can hopefully uncover some of the secrets of the universe during Webb’s multiyear mission.

The deployment process of the 18-segment, 21-foot-wide primary mirror will begin later this week, once the setup of the smaller secondary mirror has been confirmed.

The primary mirror deployment involves the locking into place of two sets of mirror segments around the main section.

A diagram of the James Webb Space Telescope.
A diagram showing the primary and secondary mirrors of the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA

The large size of both the primary mirror and the sunshield meant that the components had to be folded into a compact shape to fit inside the rocket fairing for launch.

It’s one of the most complicated space deployments ever attempted, though so far everything seems to be going to plan. Following the successful setup of the sunshield, the Webb team said that up to now “about 75%” of its 344 single-point failures have been handled without any issues.

Once the primary mirror is fully deployed, the Webb team will spend around five months aligning the telescope’s mirror and fine-tuning its onboard instruments.

Only then can the serious work of exploring deep space begin.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
‘That’s weird’: This galaxy could help astronomers understand the earliest stars
The newly-discovered GS-NDG-9422 galaxy appears as a faint blur in this James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) image. It could help astronomers better understand galaxy evolution in the early Universe.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have spotted a weird galaxy that originated just a billion years after the Big Bang. Its strange properties are helping researchers to piece together how early galaxies formed, and to inch closer to one of astronomy's holy grail discoveries: the very earliest stars.

The researchers used Webb's instruments to look at the light coming from the GS-NDG-9422 galaxy across different wavelengths, called a spectrum, and made some puzzling findings.

Read more
James Webb image shows two galaxies in the process of colliding
This composite image of Arp 107, created with data from the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-InfraRed Camera) and MIRI (Mid-InfraRed Instrument), reveals a wealth of information about the star formation taking place in these two galaxies and how they collided hundreds of million years ago. The near-infrared data, shown in white, show older stars, which shine brightly in both galaxies, as well as the tenuous gas bridge that runs between them. The vibrant background galaxies are also brightly illuminated at these wavelengths.

A new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows one of the universe's most dramatic events: the colliding of two galaxies. The pair, known as Arp 107, are located located 465 million light-years away and have been pulled into strange shapes by the gravitational forces of the interaction, but this isn't a purely destructive process. The collision is also creating new stars as young stars are born in swirling clouds of dust and gas.

The image above is a composite, bringing together data from Webb's NIRCam (Near-InfraRed Camera) and MIRI (Mid-InfraRed Instrument). These two instruments operate in different parts of the infrared, so they can pick up on different processes. The data collected in the near-infrared range is seen in white, highlighting older stars and the band of gas running between the two galaxies. The mid-infrared data is shown in orange and red, highlighting busy regions of star formation, with bright young stars putting out large amounts of radiation.

Read more
James Webb trains its sights on the Extreme Outer Galaxy
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has observed the very outskirts of our Milky Way galaxy. Known as the Extreme Outer Galaxy, this region is located more than 58 000 light-years from the Galactic centre.

A gorgeous new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a bustling region of star formation at the distant edge of the Milky Way. Called, dramatically enough, the Extreme Outer Galaxy, this region is located 58,000 light-years away from the center of the galaxy, which is more than twice the distance from the center than Earth is.

Scientists were able to use Webb's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) instruments to capture the region in sparkling detail, showing molecular clouds called Digel Clouds 1 and 2 containing clumps of hydrogen, which enables the formation of new stars.

Read more