NASA successfully deploys complex sunshield on James Webb Space Telescope
The layers of JWST's sunshield undergoing tests on the ground before its launch | Image: Northrop Grumman/Alex Evers NASA's next-generation James Webb Space Telescope has successfully deployed its sunshield - a critical feature the observatory will use to keep its instruments extra cold during the course of its mission. The unfurling of the sunshield marks the end of perhaps the most complicated deployment the observatory must pull off in order to properly function while in space.
This is a really big moment," Bill Ochs, the project manager for JWST at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said to the mission team after the deployment was complete. I just want to congratulate the entire team. We still got a lot of work to do but but getting the sunshield out and deployed is really, really big."
The James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, is NASA's...