NASA to Discuss Progress as Webb Telescope’s Mirrors Align

NASA technicians use a crane to lift and move the James Webb Space Telescope, with its 21-foot primary mirror deployed, inside a clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in April 2017.

Credits: NASA/Desiree Stover

NASA will hold a virtual media briefing on Wednesday, March 16, at noon EDT to offer an update on the mirror alignment of the James Webb Space Telescope. The press conference will be broadcast live on NASA TV, the NASA app, and the NASA website.

Webb's mirrors will be aligned, resulting in a fully concentrated view of a single star, and participants will communicate their progress. Prior to the briefing, NASA will make imagery demonstrating the achievement of this milestone available on the agency's website at 11:30 a.m.

Briefing participants include:

• Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington
• Lee Feinberg, Webb optical telescope element manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
• Marshall Perrin, Webb deputy telescope scientist, Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore
• Jane Rigby, Webb operations project scientist, Goddard
• Erin Wolf, Webb program manager, Ball Aerospace in Broomfield, Colorado

To ask questions during the briefing, reporters must RSVP to Laura Betz at laura.e.betz@nasa.gov no later than two hours before the start of the event. Using the hashtag #UnfoldtheUniverse, members of the media and the general public can pose questions on social media.

The media accreditation rules for NASA is published on the agency's website.

The Webb team has successfully recorded starlight through each of Webb's 18 mirror segments in recent weeks. The scientists then polished and placed those 18 separate dots of light on top of one another to create a single star alignment image. Engineers have made tiny modifications to the placements of Webb's 18 primary mirror segments since then, in stages called "coarse phasing" and "fine phasing," so they work as a single mirror, providing a sharp and focused image of a single star.

Webb, a joint venture between the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, took out from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on December 25. The observatory is now prepared for science activities after unfolding into its final form in orbit and safely reaching its destination 1 million kilometres from Earth. After finishing telescope alignment and instrument preparation, the Webb team will release the telescope's first science photos and data this summer.

Webb will look at every aspect of cosmic history, from the inner workings of our solar system to the farthest detectable galaxies in the early cosmos, and everything in between. Webb will make fresh and unexpected findings that will aid humanity in understanding the universe's beginnings and our place within it.

A digital media package, as well as photograph and video galleries, are available on the NASA website. A "Where is Webb?" interactive tracker is also available for the public to follow Webb's journey.