New image released by nasamarshall on Flickr with the following caption : Marshall, Mirrors, and Mission History with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope As NASA prepares to launch the James Webb Space Telescope, the Webb team at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is especially proud reflecting on their work for the mission, which spans more than two decades and primarily focused on development and testing of the mirrors in extreme cold temperatures at which Webb will operate. While Webb is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, teams at Marshall worked closely with Goddard and others over the course of the telescope’s development. The upcoming launch of NASA’s Webb telescope will mark the next leap forward in space observation and exploration. Its discoveries could fundamentally alter our understanding of the universe. With a mirror surface area roughly six times larger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope, it has the ability to see some of the earliest objects to form after the big bang. Webb’s science goals are to observe the universe’s light emitted by the first galaxies, and to study exoplanets a little closer to home with an unprecedented level of detail. But that’s just the end of the beginning. Marshall’s involvement with Webb began in 1989, under the observatory’s previous name, the Next Generation Space Telescope. Marshall was responsible for the strawman design and the integrated modeling of the design. Concurrently in 1989, Marshall upgraded the X-ray and Cryogenic Facility, the world’s largest X-ray telescope test facility. The facility's unique capability and crew have been essential to the development and verification activities of many agency flagship missions, including the Chandra X-ray Observatory. From 1996-2003, Marshall’s focus shifted to designing and developing technology that would be used in support of the mirrors on Webb. The Marshall team provided technical oversight of the We,Image: 650651468, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** Editorial Use Only ***, *** HANDOUT image or SOCIAL MEDIA IMAGE or FILMSTILL for EDITORIAL USE ONLY! * Please note: Fees charged by Profimedia are for the Profimedia's services only, and do not, nor are they intended to, convey to the user any ownership of Copyright or License in the material. Profimedia does not claim any ownership including but not limited to Copyright or License in the attached material. By publishing this material you (the user) expressly agree to indemnify and to hold Profimedia and its directors, shareholders and employees harmless from any loss, claims, damages, demands, expenses (including legal fees), or any causes of action or allegation against Profimedia arising out of or connected in any way with publication of the material. Profimedia does not claim any copyright or license in the attached materials. Any downloading fees charged by Profimedia are for Profimedia's services only. * Handling Fee Only ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Profimedia