James Webb Space Telescope proceeding to plan
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.029528
BBC : Despite a record-setting blizzard this past weekend on the US East Coast, which shut down airports, roadways, and most businesses, scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, continued to work around the clock testing the various instruments on the James Webb Space Telescope. Scheduled to launch in 2018, it will have a 6.5-meter-wide mirror with a light-collecting area that is seven times as large as that of the Hubble Space Telescope. The mirror will comprise 18 gold-coated beryllium hexagons, 16 of which have already been fastened into a supporting structure. By May the mirror and its four IR-sensitive instruments are expected to be assembled, and following a series of tests, they will be shipped to NASA’s Johnson Space Center for further testing in its cryovac chamber.