On Saturday the sun shield on the James Webb space telescope was fully deployed. The last mirrored wing of the giant telescope unfolded in space. Two weeks after its Christmas Day launch, and 30 years after development began NASA reached the “end of deployment.”
The James Webb aka the “Golden Surfer” is the most powerful telescope to ever reach space. And it was launched out of Maryland-based NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
The James Webb launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from the Guiana Space Center in South America. NASA provided a virtual simulation Livestream of the entire process from launch to deployment.
Bill Ochs, the Nasa Webb project manager commented that “Thousands of people have worked on JWST to get us to this point. I will tell you every single day that I am honored and humbled to be associated with this team.”
“The events of the last two weeks have truly been amazing,” Ochs said Saturday afternoon. “Today represents the beginning of a journey for this incredible machine, to its discoveries that we’ll be making in the future.”
