NASA said that all of the mirrors that will fly aboard its James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have been polished.
Northrop Grumman [NOC] is the prime contractor for JWST to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
“Webb’s mirror polishing always was considered the most challenging and important technological milestone in the manufacture of the telescope, so this is a hugely significant accomplishment,” said Lee Feinberg, Webb Optical Telescope manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
The mirrors were polished at L-3 Integrated Optical Systems in Richmond, Calif. After polishing, the mirrors are being coated with a layer of gold to enable them to efficiently reflect infrared light. The 18 segments fit together to make one large mirror 21.3 feet across.
The project is working toward a 2018 launch date from a European Spaceport located near Kourou, French Guiana.
Successor to the Hubble Telescope, JWST is the next-generation space observatory. It will observe the most distant objects in the universe, provide images of the very first galaxies ever formed and study planets around distant stars. The Webb Telescope is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.