In a Truly Historic Milestone, JWST Has Been Successfully Deployed! Now What?

We can all let out a collective sigh of relief. With its primary mirror array fully unfolded, the major components of the beleaguered James Webb Space Telescope are now deployed, and it continues to calmly make its way to its destination.   The deployment, completed on 8 January 2022, marks a pretty important milestone for … Read more

1 billion seconds in space! NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope surpasses major milestone

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has reached a major milestone: one billion seconds in the final frontier. The famous observatory launched on April 24, 1990, aboard the space shuttle Discovery. Hubble was deployed into orbit the following day, beginning its mission to explore the vast universe, including distant galaxies, supernovas, nebulas and exoplanets. On Jan. 1, … Read more

NASA’s New Flagship Telescope Fully Deploys Sunshield in Critical Mission Milestone

The James Webb Space Telescope fully deployed its tennis-court sized sunshield Tuesday, a critical milestone for the success of its mission to study every phase of cosmic history, NASA said.   “All five layers of the sunshield are fully tensioned,” said an announcer at the observatory’s control center in Baltimore, where team members cheered, a … Read more

James Webb Space Telescope unfurls massive sunshield in major deployment milestone

One of the James Webb Space Telescope’s most nail-biting deployment steps is safely in the books. The $10 billion observatory unfurled its huge sunshield on Friday (Dec. 31), carefully unfolding the five-layer structure by sequentially deploying two booms. “Shine bright like a diamond. With the successful deployment of our right sunshield mid-boom, or ‘arm,’ Webb’s … Read more

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has touched the sun in daring mission milestone

The Parker Solar Probe has finally reached the atmosphere of the sun. The NASA spacecraft spent more than three years winding its way by planets and creeping gradually closer to our star to learn more about the origin of the solar wind, which pushes charged particles across the solar system. Since solar activity has a … Read more