NASA’s Webb Space Telescope Receives First Mirror Installation

  • Released Thursday, December 3, 2015
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Produced Video showing engineers in the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center cleanroom placing the first mirror on the Webb Telescope.

NASA has successfully installed the first of 18 flight mirrors onto the James Webb Space Telescope, beginning a critical piece of the observatory’s construction.

In the clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the engineering team used a robot arm to lift and lower the hexagonal-shaped segment that measures just over 4.2 feet (1.3 meters) across and weighs approximately 88 pounds (40 kilograms). After being pieced together, the 18 primary mirror segments will work together as one large 21.3-foot (6.5-meter) mirror. The full installation is expected to be complete early next year.

B-roll footage of Webb Telescope's first mirror installation.

For More Information

See www.jwst.nasa.gov

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NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Thursday, December 3, 2015.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:49 PM EDT.

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