James Webb Space Telescope
2021-present
The largest space telescope ever flown. A 6.5 m gold-coated beryllium mirror, launched 25 Dec 2021, now orbiting the Sun 1.5 million km from Earth.
Specs
~6,500 kg; 18 mirror segments; 21 m sunshield; at the Sun-Earth L2 point (~1.5M km); operates at ~40 K (-233 C).
Why it matters
It sees infrared light from the first galaxies. Its parking spot, L2, is a real, calculable gravitational balance point 1.5 million km away - not a place you can reach with a drone.