The Space Telescope Science Institute hosted a workshop in Baltimore, MD, in mid-September 1989 to discuss the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.
The workshop involved 130 astronomers and engineers, with NASA participating to define the requirements for a new telescope originally called the Next Generation Space Telescope.
In 2002, NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe renamed the telescope the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to honor Apollo-era NASA administrator James Webb.
In 2004, NASA led the JWST (also called the Webb or the Webb Telescope) project, supported by European and Canadian space agencies.
The Webb telescope has a 21-foot four-inch primary mirror, the largest sent to space.
Made of lightweight beryllium O-30 powder, it consists of 18 hexagonal segments that maintain stability at very low temperatures.
Each segment (one of the 18 individual hexagonal mirrors that fit together to form the primary surface) features seven actuators (motors) for precise shape adjustments.
All 18 mirror segments have a thin gold coating (only about 48 grams in total) to reflect infrared light while minimizing weight.
The two outermost sunshield layers facing the sun are additionally coated with doped silicon for optimal heat reflection.
The sunshield design protects the telescope from extreme temperatures, ranging from 230 degrees Fahrenheit on the hot side to minus 394 degrees Fahrenheit on the cold side, ensuring its sensitive infrared instruments remain operational.
NASA Goddard managed the project, with Northrop Grumman of Redondo Beach, CA, as the prime contractor.
Ball Aerospace, in Broomfield, CO, developed the optical system and mirrors for the JWST.
Three Minnesota companies contributed to the Webb telescope: Multek-Sheldahl Brand Material of Northfield, Minco Products Inc. of Minneapolis, and ION Corp. of Eden Prairie.
The Webb is both a telescope and a spacecraft.
Equipped with solar panels, antennas, propulsion thrusters, thermal control, navigation systems, and data handling capabilities, the JWST efficiently operates in space.
Its propulsion thrusters use hydrazine fuel and dinitrogen tetroxide oxidizer for orbit and attitude adjustments.
NASA designated the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore as Webb’s Mission Control and Science and Operations Center.
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched Dec. 25, 2021, at 7:20 a.m. ET from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, located on the north Atlantic coast of South America.
It traveled aboard an Ariane 5 rocket, which stands 171 feet tall and generated 2.9 million pounds of thrust.
At about 3.5 minutes after launch, the fairing enclosing the seven-ton JWST opened at an altitude of roughly 68 miles above Earth.
Twenty-seven minutes after liftoff, at an altitude near 870 miles, Webb separated from the upper stage; shortly thereafter, it deployed its solar panel and established communication with mission control.
The JWST began its journey, arriving at the Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2) Jan. 24, 2022, after deploying its sunshield and mirrors along the way.
It settled into a halo orbit around the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2), approximately 930,000 miles from Earth.
This specific orbit allows Webb to balance the gravitational forces from the sun and Earth, providing an ideal vantage point for viewing the universe.
The Webb telescope officially began its mission to explore the universe July 12, 2022.
The JWST communicates with Mission Control through NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), which comprises large radio antenna complexes located near Goldstone, CA, Canberra, Australia, and Madrid, Spain.
The telescope operates on the S-band at 2.27 GHz for commands and the Ka-band at 25.9 GHz for fast science data transmission.
The Ka-band downlink enables the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to send data at speeds up to 28 megabits per second, transmitting at least 57.2 gigabytes of scientific data daily.
This data uses the Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) to share and analyze images of the universe.
The DSN sends FITS data to the Webb Science and Operations Center in Baltimore for processing and distribution to scientists worldwide.
Between May 22 and 24, 2022, a micrometeoroid struck the JWST’s C3 mirror, causing more damage than pre-launch predictions expected.
NASA adjusted the alignment of JWST’s primary mirror segments to reduce distortion, enabling high-quality data and imagery.
A team led by the University of Minnesota made a noteworthy announcement April 13, 2023, regarding the discovery of a small, magnified galaxy characterized by a significant rate of star formation.
The team used the Webb telescope to observe what the U of M press release called a “minuscule galaxy” magnified by the gravity of the foreground galaxy cluster RX J2129.
This observation revealed the minuscule galaxy as it existed around 500 million years after the Big Bang, which happened about 13.8 billion years ago.
In May 2024, the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) confirmed JADES-GS-z14-0 as the most distant galaxy discovered to date.
The galaxy is observed as it was just 290 million years after the Big Bang, its light having traveled about 13.5 billion years to reach Earth.
In March of this year, two separate teams using the ALMA telescope (Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array) in Chile reported the detection of significant oxygen signatures originating from JADES-GS-z14-0.
The James Webb Space Telescope cost about $10 billion, far exceeding NASA’s initial estimates due to overruns and delays.
The Webb telescope is expected to be operational well into the 2040s as long as it avoids damage from micrometeoroid impacts.
More information is available at webbtelescope.org.
