What Three Decades Did for Space Exploration As NASA Worked To Build One New Telescope - Jalopnik

In less than three weeks, NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency will finally launch the James Webb Space Telescope into orbit.

The new observatory has been created as a successor to the aging Hubble Space Telescope and will be the largest and most powerful space science telescope ever constructed by NASA.

All this will help the James Webb Telescope observe parts of space that have never been seen before.

In 1989, one year before NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope, the U.S.

That year, the Space Telescope Science Institute and NASA co-hosted a workshop to begin deciding what capabilities a new space telescope needed.

In 1996, a committee concluded that the satellite should be equipped with everything needed to observe infrared light, and called for the craft to be fitted with a mirror with a diameter of more than four meters across – which is exactly what the James Webb Telescope now has.

In 2002, NASA decided to rename the Next Generation Space Telescope as the James Webb Space Telescope, after the former NASA administrator.

That year, the agency also launched five Space Shuttle missions, including one to service the aging Hubble Space Telescope, which NASA initially thought would only remain in service until 2005.

Two years later, NASA began constructing the James Webb Telescope, including the 18 pieces that would make up its golden primary mirror.

This year also marked a turning point in the space race, as space travel was opened up to private individuals for the first time.