14 DAY TRIAL // The construction of NASA's next-generation observatory, which is scheduled to replace the Hubble Space Telescope by 2018, is coming along nicely. A few days ago, several key components of the James Webb Space Telescope were lowered in a special test chamber, where they are now frozen.
The thermal vacuum test chamber – located at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in Greenbelt, Maryland – is not your typical freezer. The installation is capable of reproducing the harsh cold of outer space, plunging temperatures to a few degrees above absolute zero.
The JWST Optical Telescope Element Simulator (OSIM) is seen in this image as experts lowered it into the test chamber. It is covered in a silver blanket, and attached via a large crane. The gold-colored structure at the bottom of the chamber is its testbed.
Over the last two years, the JWST construction effort reached a number of milestones, and it would now appear that the poor management decisions that drove the observatory's price tag to $8.8 billion are a thing of the past.