James Webb Space Telescope

After completing its cryogenic testing in NASA Johnson Space Center’s Chamber A, the optical and science segment of the James Webb Space Telescope is packed and transported to the Northrop Grumman facility in Los Angeles. There, it will be combined with its sunshield and spacecraft bus, tested and then packed for the journey to the European Space Agency’s launch facility in French Guiana.

The Webb telescope’s mirrors are beautiful, but they are also amazing feats of engineering.

The James Webb Space Telescope will be the largest telescope ever sent into space. It is the impressive result of efforts from NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency and will peer to the edges of the visible universe. This video highlights some of the Webb’s most impressive facts. This is an updated and narrated version of the Top Ten Facts about the James Webb Space Telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope feature for the 2017 American Astronomical Society (AAS) Event.

About 1 million miles away from the nearest eye surgeon, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will be able to perfect its own vision while in orbit. Though the Webb telescope will focus on stars and galaxies approximately 13.5 billion light-years away, its sight goes through a similar process as you would if you underwent laser vision correction surgery to be able to focus on an object 10 feet across the room. In orbit at Earth’s second Lagrange point (L2), far from the help of a terrestrial doctor, Webb will use its near-infrared camera (NIRCam) instrument to help align its primary mirror segments about 40 days after launch, once they have unfolded from their unaligned stowed position and cooled to their operating temperatures. Laser vision correction surgery reshapes the cornea of the eye to remove imperfections that cause vision problems like nearsightedness. The cornea is the surface of the eye; it helps focus rays of light on the retina at the back of the eye, and though it appears to be uniform and smooth, it can be misshapen and pockmarked with dents, dimples, and other imperfections that can affect a person’s sight. The relative positioning of Webb’s primary mirror segments after launch will be the equivalent of these corneal imperfections, and engineers on Earth will need to make corrections to the mirrors’ positions to bring them into alignment, ensuring they will produce sharp, focused images. These corrections are made through a process called wavefront sensing and control, which aligns the mirrors to within tens of nanometers. During this process, a wavefront sensor (NIRCam in this case) measures any imperfections in the alignment of the mirror segments that prevent them from acting like a single, 6.5-meter (21.3-foot) mirror. An eye surgeon performing wavefront-guided laser vision correction surgery (a process that was improved by technology developed to shape Webb’s mirrors) similarly measures and three-dimensionally maps any inconsistencies in the cornea. The system feeds this data to a laser, the surgeon customizes the procedure for the individual, and the laser then reshapes and resurfaces the cornea according to that procedure. Engineers on Earth will not use a laser to melt and reshape Webb’s mirrors (feel free to give a sigh of relief); instead, they will use NIRCam to take images to determine how much they need to adjust each of the telescope’s 18 mirror segments. They can adjust the segments through extremely minute movements of each mirror segment’s seven actuators (tiny mechanical motors) — in steps of about 1/10,000th the diameter of a human hair. The wavefront sensing and control process is broken into two parts — coarse phasing and fine phasing. During coarse phasing, engineers point the telescope toward a bright star and use NIRCam to find any large offsets between the mirror segments (though “large” is relative, and in this case it means mere millimeters). NIRCam has a special filter wheel that can select, or filter, specific optical elements that are used during the coarse phasing process. While Webb looks at the bright star, grisms in the filter wheel will spread the white light of the star out on a detector. Grisms, also called grating prisms, are used to separate light of different wavelengths. To an observer, these different wavelengths appear as parallel line segments on a detector. “The light from each segment will interfere with adjacent segments, and if the segments are not aligned to better than a wavelength of light, that interference shows up like barber pole patterns,” explained Lee Feinberg, optical telescope element manager for the Webb telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The analysis of the barber pole patterns tell the engineers how to move the mirrors.” During fine phasing, engineers will again focus the telescope on a bright star. This time, they will use NIRCam to take 18 out-of-focus images of that star — one from each mirror segment. The engineers then use computer algorithms to determine the overall shape of the primary mirror from those individual images, and to determine how they must move the mirrors to align them. These algorithms were previously tested and verified on a 1/6th scale model of Webb’s optics, and the real telescope experienced this process inside the cryogenic, airless environment of Chamber A at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Engineers will go through multiple fine-phasing sessions until those 18 separate, out-of-focus images become a single, clear image. After the engineers align the primary mirror segments, they must align the secondary mirror to the primary, then align both the primary and secondary mirrors to the tertiary mirror and the science instruments. Though the engineers complete the initial alignment with NIRCam, Feinberg explained they also test the alignment with Webb’s other instruments to ensure the telescope is aligned “over the full field.” The entire alignment process is expected to take several months, and once Webb begins making observations, its mirrors will need to be checked every few days to ensure they are still aligned — just as someone who underwent laser vision correction surgery will schedule regular eye doctor visits to make sure their vision is not degrading. The James Webb Space Telescope, the scientific complement to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, will be the premier space observatory of the next decade. Webb is an international project led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency). For more information about the Webb telescope visit: www.webb.nasa.gov or www.nasa.gov/webb By Eric Villard NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Hidden below Chamber A at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston is an area engineers used to test critical contamination control technology that has helped keep NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope clean during cryogenic testing. This voluminous area is called the plenum, and it supports the weight of the chamber above as well as houses some of the cabling and plumbing for it. Before Webb’s cryogenic testing in the chamber commenced, engineers ventured to the plenum’s depths to test NASA-developed technology designed to remove molecular contaminants from the air. Catching contaminants Nithin Abraham, a coatings engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is part of a contamination control team tasked with ensuring Webb remains as clean as possible during its testing in Chamber A. Abraham developed and tested a highly permeable and porous material called molecular adsorber coating (MAC), which can be sprayed onto surfaces to passively capture contaminants that could be harmful to Webb’s optics and science instruments. Not to be confused with absorption, adsorption is the process in which microscopic materials (for example, atoms and molecules) adhere to a surface — in this case, to the surface of a panel coated with the MAC. The MAC panel secures contaminants released through outgassing, a process that occurs when gas that was dissolved, absorbed, or otherwise trapped within a substance is released into the surrounding environment. An example of this is the coveted “new car smell” of a freshly manufactured automobile. Even minute amounts of outgassed material within the plenum could have posed a threat to Webb’s optics and science instruments located in Chamber A, so Abraham and her team — engineers turned spelunkers — descended into the cave-like space to place the MAC panels. To reach the plenum, the engineers walked single file along a narrow, mineshaft-like passageway between the helium shroud that surrounds the Webb telescope and the wall of the chamber, then descended a ladder into the cylindrical room. Light along the path and within the plenum is sparse, so the engineers donned headlamps before they made the journey. They also wore oxygen sensors to warn them if oxygen levels inside the plenum were getting low. The MAC panels in the plenum primarily captured hydrocarbons and silicone-based compounds. These contaminants are ghosts of the Apollo era, when a mechanism within the central cylinder of the plenum rotated the floor of the chamber above. This rotation simulated the thermal roll used to evenly disperse heat on the Apollo spacecraft during their journeys to and from the Moon. Nithin and her team also placed MAC panels inside Chamber A, including on the outside of the helium shroud. Shielding the Webb telescope MAC panels are only one type of contamination control protecting the Webb telescope from both microscopic and macroscopic threats. Engineers wear white cleanroom suits to prevent particles of skin, hair, and clothing fibers from depositing on the telescope. Similarly, Webb has moved from cleanroom to cleanroom because they are specially designed to reduce the amount of airborne particles present. Engineers enter the cleanrooms using airlocks, and the rooms have positive air pressure compared to their surrounding environment, so air flows out of the area and takes any potential contaminants with it. If Webb’s sensitive instruments and mirrors get contaminated despite these precautions, the contaminants can be carefully removed using solvents and other cleaning techniques, such as shooting carbon-dioxide snow at the affected areas. Outgassing in space When a spacecraft is exposed to the vacuum of space, outgassing occurs from epoxies, tapes, lubricants, plastics, and other materials used to construct it. For Webb, the biggest threat from outgassing comes early in its mission, shortly after launch when the telescope is cooling down but is still warm. “Fortunately, warm things outgas but cold things not so much, so once the telescope and instruments go cold, the outgassing goes way down,” explained Lee Feinberg, optical telescope element manager for the Webb telescope at Goddard. Engineers will control the temperatures of the different parts of the observatory as it cools so outgassed molecules from one part do not deposit elsewhere, such as on sensitive surfaces like the optics, but instead escape to space. Though the MAC is only being used terrestrially and peripherally for Webb, engineers are researching ways to apply the coating directly to elements of future NASA spacecraft, as an added measure of protection. The James Webb Space Telescope, the scientific complement to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, will be the premier space observatory of the next decade. Webb is an international project led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency). For more information about NASA’s Webb telescope, visit: www.webb.nasa.gov or www.nasa.gov/webb Read more about how we are keeping Chamber A free of contaminants: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-technology-protects-webb-telescope-from-contamination

Engineers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston used light waves to align the James Webb Space Telescope’s mirror segments to each other, so they act like a single, monolithic mirror in the cryogenic cold of the center’s iconic Chamber A. Part of the Webb telescope’s ongoing cryogenic testing in Chamber A at Johnson includes aligning, or “phasing,” the telescope’s 18 hexagonally shaped primary mirror segments so they function as a single 6.5-meter mirror. All of these segments must have the correct position and correct curvature; otherwise, the telescope will not be able to accurately focus on its celestial targets. To measure the shape of the Webb telescope’s primary mirror, engineers use a test device called an interferometer, which shines a laser down onto the mirror. Because the mirror is segmented, it requires a specially designed interferometer, known as a multi-wavelength interferometer, which allows the engineers to use two light waves at once, explained Lee Feinberg, optical telescope element manager for the Webb telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The interferometer splits the laser light into two separate waves. One of these waves goes through a lens and reflects off the primary mirror; the other wave acts as a reference. The reflected wave interferes with (meets) the reference wave, and engineers analyze the combined wave that results from that interference. “By analyzing the interference signal, engineers determine the mirror shape and the alignment of the mirrors,” explained Feinberg. When the engineers need to adjust the positions and shapes of the mirror segments to achieve precise alignment, they use the seven actuators (tiny mechanical motors) attached to the back of each one of the mirror segments. For each segment, six of these actuators are placed into groups of two, at three equally spaced points along the outside of the mirror (to adjust the segment’s position), and one is attached to six struts that are connected to each of the hexagonal mirror segment’s corners (to adjust the segment’s shape).

James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) has both a camera and a spectrograph that sees light in the mid-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum, with wavelengths that are longer than our eyes see. MIRI covers the wavelength range of 5 to 28.5 microns. Its sensitive detectors will allow it to see the redshifted light of distant galaxies, helping identify the first galaxies in the universe, observe newly forming stars by peering inside dust-shrouded stellar nurseries, and analyze the atmospheres of exoplanets for markers of potential life. MIRI's camera will provide wide-field, broadband imaging that will return breathtaking astrophotography. MIRI was built by the MIRI Consortium (a group that consists of scientists and engineers from European countries), a team from the Jet Propulsion Lab in California, and scientists from several U.S. institutions.

When NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope needs to move, it must be carefully packed inside a specially designed container called the Space Telescope Transporter for Air, Road, and Sea (STTARS). As the name implies, the container protects Webb during its journeys on ground, above ground, and over water. The massive container weighs approximately 165,000 pounds (almost 75,000 kilograms) and dwarfs Webb in terms of mass — the telescope weighs approximately 14,000 pounds (6,350 kilograms) here on Earth. All of that bulk is needed to keep Webb’s individual parts, and eventually the fully assembled telescope, safe during the journey to the launch pad.

May 2017 marked the end of an era for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center because the James Webb Space Telescope has moved to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX.

Webb has been at Goddard in some form for 21 years. And with the completion of the acoustic, vibration and center of curvature tests, the telescope part of the Webb spacecraft was finally ready for the next big test - the cryogenic vacuum test in the Apollo-made-famous Chamber A.

Transporting Webb is a carefully choreographed dance. For the move to Johnson, the telescope was placed into a climate-controlled container called STTARS (Space Telescope Transporter for Air Road and Sea). A truck then slowly moved the large container during the night to Joint Base Andrews where it was loaded into a C-5 cargo airplane. The container is so tall that some power lines and traffic lights were moved.

After a flight to Ellington Field in Houston, Texas, Webb was driven to Johnson.

Webb was unpacked in Houston's Chamber A cleanroom and preparation for testing commenced.

This compilation video is created for outreach purposes. This collection of James Webb Space Telescope videos and imagery is designed to be shown at conventions, conferences, in booths and at public events. This is the 2017 compliation version. The individual videos in this compilation can be found on the Webb Telescope Gallery page.

While two football teams will be put to the test at Super Bowl LI in Houston, engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, are testing the most powerful space telescope ever built, the James Webb Space Telescope. To demonstrate all the shaking, quaking and super-chill temperatures the Webb telescope is going through, Goddard engineers did similar tests - with a football. Being launched on a rocket creates high levels of noise and vibration, and once in orbit the Webb telescope will have to function under extreme temperatures. So NASA engineers are doing vibration, acoustics and other tests to ensure that the Webb telescope will function properly. Once in orbit about 930,000 miles (1.5 million km) from Earth, the Webb telescope will provide images of the first galaxies ever formed and explore planets around distant stars. It is a joint project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency. For more information about the Webb telescope, visit: www.jwst.nasa.gov or www.nasa.gov/webb.

Engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center moved the James Webb Space Telescope from the Space Systems Development and Integration (SSDIF) Facility cleanroom to the acoustic testing chamber. From here, the Webb telescope was put through sound pressure tests that simulate the environment it will experience when it is launched on the Ariane V Rocket. Conducting these tests on the ground is critical to demonstrate the hardware is safe to launch. Once these tests were done, the telescope was moved back into the cleanroom.

Inside NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland the James Webb Space Telescope team completed the environmental portion of vibration testing on the telescope. A shaker table is used to shake satellites to ensure a spacecraft like Webb can withstand the shaking that comes with a ride into space on a rocket. The new vibration test system simulates the forces the telescope will feel during the launch by vibrating it from 5 to 100 times per second. For more information about NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, visit: www.jwst.nasa.gov or www.nasa.gov/webb.

A short featurette about how engineers at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland practice moving a mock up version of the James Webb Space Telescope onto the vibration facility, before moving the actual telescope for sine vibration tests.

Produced by Northrop Grumman, this narrated 12-minute video describes the James Webb Space Telescope's launch and deploy process.

Thousands of people, for almost two decades, accomplished the construction of the telescope element of the largest space telescope ever created. The optical and science segment of the James Webb Space Telescope stands complete in one of the largest cleanrooms in the world, located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

The James Webb Space Telescope will be the largest telescope ever sent into space. It is the impressive result of efforts from NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency and will peer to the edges of the visible universe. This video highlights some of the Webb’s most impressive facts.

The James Webb Space Telescope will be the largest telescope ever sent into space. It is the impressive result of efforts from NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency and will peer to the edges of the visible universe. This video highlights some of the Webb’s most impressive facts.

Engineers lift the James Webb Space Telescope's cameras and spectrographs out of the Space Environment Simulator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. These vital parts of the Webb Space Telescope endured their last super-cold test at NASA Goddard before installation into the telescope.

A produced video of the Webb Telescope's ISIM structure is tested on the very large centrifuge at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center - May 2011. The centrifuge simulates the increased feeling of gravity's pull during a launch. For astronauts, that's normally a few minutes at two or three times the force of Earth's gravity, measured in Gs. Equipment carried in space shuttle cargo bays usually sees between 6 and 7 Gs because of vibration.

Engineers have been working tirelessly to install all 18 of the final primary mirror segments, on what will be the biggest and most powerful space telescope ever launched. Completing the assembly of the primary mirror, which took place at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is a significant milestone and the culmination of over a decade of design, manufacturing, and testing the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope.

Produced Video showing engineers in the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center cleanroom placing the first mirror on the Webb Telescope.

Produced video showing engineers in the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center cleanroom lifting the Webb Telescope telescope structure into the assembly stand in preparation for installation of the primary mirror segments.

Engineers lift and lower the heart of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope into the Space Environment Simulator, a giant thermal vacuum and cryogenic test chamber, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Produced video showing engineers placing the Webb Telescope's Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) with all four Webb telescope instruments into the Space Environment Simulator for its last cryogenic test before being integraed into the telescope. (10-14-2015)

The flight structure of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope was standing tall in the cleanroom at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland

Webb Telescope's Backplane arrived at Joint Base Andrews on Monday, August 24, 2015 aboard a U.S. Air Force C-5 cargo plane. The Backplane, inside the Space Telescope Transporter for Air Road and Sea (STTARS) container, is off-loaded from the C-5 and carefully transported to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. There the container is moved into the cleanroom and opened in preparation for the removal of the Backplane. The Webb Telescope's Backplane is a large composite structure that holds and supports Webb's hexagonal mirrors. The backplane supports the weight of the 21-foot (6.5 m) diameter mirror, and 7,500 lbs (2400 kg) of telescope optics and instruments.

Engineers work in the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s cleanroom to stow the Webb Telescope’s Backplane Pathfinder and its Secondary Mirror Support Structure in preprartion for placing it into a large shipping container and transported to the NASA Johnson Space Center for cryogenic testing.

In this NASA video, engineers from Airbus Defense and Space (DS), Ottobrunn, Germany, dressed in white protective suits and special white gloves, recently completed a delicate surgical procedure to exchange two key components, the Micro Shutter Array and the Focal Plane Assembly from the "heart" of an instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Nobel laureate and James Webb Space Telescope Project Scientist, Dr. John Mather discusses space, time and the Webb Telescope. (TRT: 60 mintues)

A new Microshutter Array for the Webb Telescope's Near Infrared Spectrometer (NIRSpec) is packed and transported by hand one building away at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to undergo thermal cycling testing and checkouts at it operational temperature of 35 kelvin or -397 Fahrenheit.

Engineers move the heart of the Webb Telescope holding all four science instruments out of the clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and into the huge Space Environment Simulator for several months of testing at temperatures reaching 20 Kelvin or -425 Fahrenheit.

Engineers install the Near Infrared Spectrometer (NIRSpec) onto the Webb Telescope's Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) in NASA Goddard Space Flight Center cleanroom. This delicate procedure took place during March 24 and March 25, 2014 in preparation for the cryogenic test of a fully integrated ISIM structure to occur this summer. The Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) is a near infrared multi-object dispersive spectrograph capable of simultaneously observing more than 100 sources over a field-of-view (FOV) larger than 3' x 3'. The NIRSpec will be the first spectrograph in space that has this capability. Targets in the Field of View are normally selected by opening groups of shutters in a micro-shutter array (MSA) to form multiple apertures. The microshutters are arranged in a waffle-like grid that contains more than 62000 shutters with each cell measuring 100 µm x 200 µm. Sweeping a magnet across the surface of the MSA opens all operable shutters. Individual shutters may then be addressed and closed electronically. NIRSpec is also capable of Fixed-slit and Integral-field spectroscopy and provides medium-resolution spectroscopy over a wavelength range of 1 - 5 µm and lower-resolution spectroscopy from 0.6 - 5 µm. NIRSpec will address all of the four main JWST science themes, and much more. It will enable large spectroscopic surveys of faint galaxies at high redshift, obtain sensitive spectra of transiting exoplanets and image line emission from protoplanetary disks and protostars. NIRSpec is being built for the European Space Agency (ESA) by the Airbus Group with Dr. Pierre Ferruit guiding its development as the ESA JWST Project Scientist. Peter Jakobsen, the NIRSpec Instrument PI, retired in December 2011.

Engineers install the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) into the Webb Telescope's Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) in NASA Goddard Space Flight Center cleanroom. The delicate procedure took place on March 20, 2014 in preparation for the cryogenic test of a fully integrated ISIM structure that will occur this summer. The Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) is Webb's primary imager that will cover the infrared wavelength range 0.6 to 5 microns. NIRCam will detect light from: the earliest stars and galaxies in the process of formation; the population of stars in nearby galaxies; as well as young stars in the Milky Way and Kuiper Belt objects. NIRCam is equipped with coronagraphs, instruments that allow astronomers to take pictures of very faint objects around a central bright object, like stellar systems. NIRCam's coronagraphs work by blocking a brighter object's light, making it possible to view the dimmer object nearby - just like shielding the sun from your eyes with an upraised hand can allow you to focus on the view in front of you. With the coronagraphs, astronomers hope to determine the characteristics of planets orbiting nearby stars. The NIRCam instrument was built and designed by the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland participated in a news conference Feb. 3 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., to discuss the status of the agency's flagship science project, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Bolden and Mikulski congratulated the JWST team for the integration at Goddard of all the telescope's flight instruments and primary mirrors.

The most powerful space telescope ever built, Webb will be the premiere observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It will study every phase in the history of our universe, including the first luminous glows after the big bang, the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets similar to Earth, and the evolution of our own solar system.

A new NASA-sponsored website, DiskDetective.org, lets the public discover embryonic planetary systems hidden among data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission.

The site is led and funded by NASA and developed by the Zooniverse, a collaboration of scientists, software developers and educators who collectively develop and manage the Internet's largest, most popular and most successful citizen science projects.

WISE, located in Earth orbit and designed to survey the entire sky in infrared light, completed two scans between 2010 and 2011. It took detailed measurements of more than 745 million objects, representing the most comprehensive survey of the sky at mid-infrared wavelengths currently available. Astronomers have used computers to search this haystack of data for planet-forming environments and narrowed the field to about a half-million sources that shine brightly in the infrared, indicating they may be "needles": dust-rich circumstellar disks that are absorbing their star's light and reradiating it as heat.

Planets form and grow within these disks. But galaxies, interstellar dust clouds, and asteroids also glow in the infrared, which stymies automated efforts to identify planetary habitats.

Disk Detective incorporates images from WISE and other sky surveys in the form of brief animations the website calls flip books. Volunteers view a flip book and then classify the object based on simple criteria, such as whether the image is round or includes multiple objects. By collecting this information, astronomers will be able to assess which sources should be explored in greater detail.

The project aims to find two types of developing planetary environments. The first, known as young stellar object disks, typically are less than 5 million years old, contain large quantities of gas, and are often found in or near young star clusters. For comparison, our own solar system is 4.6 billion years old.

The other type of habitat is called a debris disk. These systems tend to be older than 5 million years, possess little or no gas, and contain belts of rocky or icy debris that resemble the asteroid and Kuiper belts found in our own solar system. Vega and Fomalhaut, two of the brightest stars in the sky, host debris disks.

Through Disk Detective, volunteers will help the astronomical community discover new planetary nurseries that will become future targets for NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope.

JWST Telescope NIRSpec instrument arrives at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. NIRSpec is provided by the European Space Agency and built by EADS/Astrium. The Near-Infared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) will be the first multi-object spectrograph to fly in space.

Engineering students from California Polytechnic Institute brought their Webb Telescope deployment model to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The students demonstrated this detailed, robotic version of Webb for the NASA team building the real thing. It’s a one – sixth scale model, and it performs the deployments the Webb Telescope will carry out before it begins science gathering.

The Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM), which is the heart of the Webb Telescope, is placed into the Space Environment Simulator (SES) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center for cryogenic testing. During this test, the ISIM is supporting the Mid-InfraRed Instument (MIRI) and the Fine Guidance Sensor / Near InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (FGS/NIRISS).

The optical module of Webb Telescope's primary imager, the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) arrives at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Saturday, July 27, 2013.

Time Lapse of FGS/NIRISS Installation into the ISIM Structure on February 28, 2013 in the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center clean room.

NASA and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) engineers install the Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) / Near-InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) instrument package onto the Webb Telescope's Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM). The FGS/NIRISS was built by the Canadian Space Agency and delivered to NASA Goddard in July of 2012.

The Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) allows Webb to point precisely, so that it can obtain high-quality images. The Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph part of the FGS/NIRISS will be used to investigate the following science objectives: first light detection, exoplanet detection and characterization, and exoplanet transit spectroscopy. It has a wavelength range of 0.8 to 5.0 microns, and is a specialized instrument with three main modes, each of which addresses a separate wavelength range.

Engineers at the Goddard Space Flight Center test the robotic-like fixture that will place the primary mirror segments of the Webb Telescope onto the telescopes back plane.

When the next-generation space telescope was being designed, engineers had to ensure there was a place large enough to test it, considering it's as big as a tennis court. That honor fell upon the famous "Chamber A" in the thermal-vacuum test facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

NASA's "Chamber A" thermal vacuum testing chamber famous for being used during Apollo missions has now been upgraded and remodeled to accommodate testing the James Webb Space Telescope.

Chamber A is now the largest high-vacuum, cryogenic-optical test chamber in the world, and made famous for testing the space capsules for NASA's Apollo mission, with and without the mission crew.

For three years, NASA Johnson engineers have been building and remodeling the chamber interior for the temperature needed to test the Webb. Testing will confirm the telescope and science instrument systems will perform properly together in the cold temperatures of space. Additional test support equipment includes mass spectrometers, infrared cameras and television cameras so engineers can keep an eye on the Webb while it's being tested.

The Center Of Curvature Optical Assembly (COCOA) will allow the program to verify the optical performance of the 21.3-foot (6.5-meter) primary mirror at its 40 degrees Kelvin (-233 Celsius) operating temperature. The COCOA contains mechanical and optical instruments that allow the test team to identify, align and test the 18-segments from outside the vacuum chamber.

James Webb Space Telescope's Secondary Mirror, along with a Primary Mirror segment arrives at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Nov. 5, 2012.

Completion of Webb Telescope mirror polishing represents a major mission milestone. All of the mirrors that will fly aboard NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have been polished so the observatory can see objects as far away as the first galaxies in the universe. The mirrors were polished at Tinsley Laboratories Inc. in Richmond, Calif. to accuracies of less than one millionth of an inch. This accuracy is important for forming the sharpest images when the mirrors cool to -400 degrees farenheit (-240 degrees celsius) in the cold of space.

The Webb Space Telescope will study planetary bodies with our solar system and planets orbiting other stars to help scientists better understand how planets form and how they evolve.

Astrophyscists and astonomers will use the James Webb Space Telescope to unravel mysteries about the evolution of the Universe. The Webb telscope will help observe how the first stars gathered into the first galaxies, and those first galaxies collided and merged into larger galaxies and evolved into the Universe we see today.

Astrophysicists and astronomers will use the James Webb Space Telescope to see further than Hubble to witness the origin and development of galaxies.

A fully produced video about planetary evolution and how the Webb Telelscope's ability to see inside dense clouds of gas and dust will help us better understand solar system formation and evolution.

Deep surveys by the James Webb Space Telescope will capture the full panorama of galaxy evolution, from the earliest dwarf galaxies that formed to the familiar galaxies we see today. The Webb Telescope will help us understand how the shape, structure and chemical content of galaxies change over the sweep of cosmic history.

A video snap shot of Webb's primary mirror segment testing at the Marshall Space Flight Center.

A video snap shot showing the arrival of JWST Near Infrared Camera Engineering Test Unit arrival at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

A video snap shot showing the arrival and unpacking of the JWST Fine Guidance Sensor Engineering Test Unit at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

A video snap shot showing JWST's Integrated Science Instrumnet Module (ISIM) structure inside Goddard's Space Environment Simulator after it completed cryogenic testing. The snap shot also shows engineers removing the ISIM and returning it to the clean room.

A video snap shot showing the arrival of JWST Near Infrared Camera Engineering Test Unit arrival at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror. Launch is planned for 2018.

The Webb Telescope will be the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System.

Formerly known as the "Next Generation Space Telescope" (NGST) and considered the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, the telescope was renamed in Sept. 2002 after former NASA administrator, James Webb.

For more information about the Webb Telescope go to: http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/.

From the Big Bang to the Nobel Prize and on to the James Webb Space Telescope and the Discovery of Alien Life