NASA's Webb telescope to reach L2 after full mirror deployment

After nearly a month in space, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, also known as JWST or Webb, now looks more like an observatory with all of its mirror segments stretched out, Webb program manager at Ball Aerospace Erin Wolf said on Wednesday.

"Today, the James Webb Space Telescope team completed the mirror segment deployments," Wolf said. 

Since its launch in December 2021, JWST has gone through a series of processes, which was enormous and the most daunting task such a project has ever attempted.

Webb's gold-coated primary mirror has 18 individual hexagonal segments, each controlled by seven actuators that allow precise movements. 

Wolf said the motors made a "million revolutions this week" as the mirror deployment team moved all 132 actuators located on the back of the primary mirror segments and secondary mirror. 

Using motors, each segment was moved out about half the length of a paper clip to clear the mirrors from their launch restraints and give each segment enough space for mirror alignment.

All 18 segments are now in their deployed positions several days earlier than scheduled, according to NASA timeline.

Wolf said the mirrors will be altered in the micron and nanometer ranges for telescope alignment called "wavefront process." The process will take approximately three months.

Next for the JWST is a trajectory burn that will shoot the telescope to its orbital designation, the Earth-sun Lagrange point 2, a point that's nearly 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from Earth, on the side of the planet opposite the sun.