The JWST team

The thousands-strong international team behind the James Webb Space Telescope - NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency, with instruments from around the world - launched 25 Dec 2021 on an Ariane 5.

Webb is so big (nearly the size of a tennis court) that it was designed to fold origami-style to fit in the rocket, then unfold 'like a Transformer' in space. Its 5-layer sunshield has an effective SPF of 1 million (suntan lotion: 8 to 50): the sun-facing side gets as hot as 85 °C, the cold side about -233 °C. Orbiting 1.5 million km from Earth (Hubble: 560 km above), it sees objects too old, distant or faint for Hubble - the first stars and the formation of the first galaxies. Every fold, hinge and layer had to deploy correctly on the first try. There was no second chance.

Built on Hubble (it is Hubble's infrared successor) and the Deep Space Network's 70 m antennas. Enabled the first-images release of July 2022.