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On Jan. 4, 2022, engineers successfully completed the deployment of the James Webb Space Telescopes sunshield, seen here during its final deployment test on Earth in December 2020 at Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, California. The five-layer, tennis court-sized sunshield is essential for protecting the telescope from heat, allowing Webbs instruments to cool down to the extremely low temperatures necessary to carry out its science goals.
Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn
The James Webb Space Telescope team has fully deployed the spacecrafts 70-foot sunshield, a key milestone in preparing it for science operations.
The sunshield about the size of a tennis court at full size was folded to fit inside the payload area of an Arianespace Ariane 5 rockets nose cone prior to launch. The Webb team began remotely deploying the sunshield Dec. 28, 2021, three days after launch.
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