Early next year, Webb will be will folded “origami-style” for shipment to the launch site and fitted compactly inside Arianespace’s Ariane 5 launch vehicle fairing, which is about 16 feet (5 meters) wide. On its journey to space, Webb will be the first mission to complete an intricate and technically challenging series of deployments – a critical part of Webb’s journey to its orbit about one million miles from Earth. Once in orbit, Webb will unfold its delicate five-layered sunshield until it reaches the size of a tennis court. Webb will then deploy its iconic 6.5-meter primary mirror that will detect the faint light of far-away stars and galaxies. 

Webb is NASA’s next great space science observatory, which will help in solving the mysteries of our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mystifying structures and origins of our universe. Webb is an international program led by NASA, along with its partners ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

For more information about Webb, go to:

https://www.nasa.gov/webb

-end-

Press Contacts

Felicia Chou / Natasha Pinol
Headquarters, Washington
202-359-0257 / 202-215-7554
felicia.chou@nasa.gov / natasha.r.pinol@nasa.gov

Laura Betz
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-9030
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

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