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Our most powerful window in the universe
is nearing final assembly.
A 21 foot diameter segmented array of mirrors
is the heart of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.
This powerful successor to the Hubble Space Telescope
will allow humans to see farther into the universe than
ever before.
This Herculean effort has pulled together technical experts
from across the nation.
The mirror odyssey begins in a mine where the precious metal
beryllium is extracted.
Beryllium is the choice for mirror material
because it is lightweight and stable at the cold temperatures
of space.
The beryllium powder is cast into four foot wide
hexagonal mirror segments.
They are precisely ground and polished to a precision
1,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair.
The mirrors are then tested to simulate the cold of deep space
at minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Mirrors are next coated with a very thin layer of gold,
which is needed to efficiently reflect infrared light
to the telescope's cameras.
The mirrors are then vibrated to see if they can
survive the rigors of launch.
At present, the mirrors are nearly completed.
They are ready to be positioned on a giant skeletal frame.
Cameras and other instruments will be added
to the rear of this back plane.
The telescope will then be rolled
into the giant thermal vacuum chamber used to test the Apollo
Lunar spacecraft.
After that, the two story high optical telescope assembly
will be attached to a tennis court sized sunshade designed
to deflect heat from the sun.
The telescope's gold mirrors will
be used to seek our cosmic origins by seeing earliest
galaxies and perhaps detect the first glimmer of life
on an alien world.
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