NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is fueled up for its Dec. 22 launch - Space.com

The new James Webb Space Telescope is topped off and one step closer to taking flight. .

Mission team members have finished fueling the James Webb Space Telescope at ahead of its planned Dec.

22 launch from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana, the European Space Agency announced Monday (Dec. 6).

Related: Building the James Webb Space Telescope (gallery).

Once successfully launched and in space, Webb will begin a complicated series of deployment maneuvers to unfurl its solar arrays on its way to its ultimate destination where it will begin making observations. !

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Webb, which will observer the universe in infrared light, is set to be the most powerful telescope ever launched into space.

When not writing, reading or following the latest space and science discoveries, Chelsea is writing music and performing as her alter ego Foxanne (@foxannemusic)