We designed and built the advanced optical technology, lightweight mirror system and cryogenic flight boxes for the James Webb Space Telescope.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, launched December 25, 2021, is the most ambitious and complex space science observatory ever built, capable of detecting light from the first stars and galaxies that formed in the universe and exploring planets around distant stars.
With unmatched sensitivity, Webb set out to study every phase of our cosmic history, from the first stars and galaxies that formed out of the darkness of the early universe, to the birth of planetary systems capable of supporting life, to the evolution of our own stellar neighborhood. Much like its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, Webb is unlocking discoveries scientists have yet to imagine.
What We Did
BAE Systems designed and built the advanced optical technology, lightweight mirror system and cryogenic flight boxes that are enabling Webb to look 13.5 billion years back in time.
The optical system includes the primary segmented mirror, the secondary, tertiary and fine-steering mirrors that give Webb unprecedented capabilities to observe the faintest objects in our universe and the smallest details of planetary systems. Measuring approximately 6.5 meters (21.3 ft.), the primary mirror is comprised of 18 hexagonal mirror segments, each approximately 1.3 meters (4.2 ft.) wide.
A set of cryogenic actuators is mounted on each segment to control individual mirror positioning and curvature radius within one ten-thousandth the width of a human hair. In December 2013, we completed shipment of the finished mirrors to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
We also designed Webb’s mirror control electronics to operate in a deep-freeze cryogenic space environment. These 22 one-of-a kind cryogenic electronic flight boxes are responsible for aligning the mirror segments on orbit so that they function as one mirror. Each box operates between -405.6 degrees F. (30K) and room temperature to multiplex signals from the warm control electronics to one mirror actuator at a time.
To develop, validate and demonstrate technologies used to develop Webb’s pioneering optical system, we drew on our in-depth experience with space hardware designed for all four of NASA's Great Observatories.