In 1996, six years after the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA was already thinking about the "next great mission beyond," even before the legendary observatory began to reveal incredible cosmic snapshots. That day, engineers Pierre Bely and Peter Stockman scribbled on a napkin—preserved among the archives of the US space agency's Goddard Space Flight Center—a model that already showed a huge solar panel and a fold-out mirror. These were the beginnings of the James Webb Space Telescope (originally dubbed the Next Generation Space Telescope ), which NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) have been working on ever since. Now, 25 years after that hasty drawing, after multiple delays, budget cuts, design changes, and even a pandemic, the James Webb is a reality. Everything is ready to reveal the first images, a taste of where Webb will take us, far back in time, to the moment when the first galaxies emerged. From a napkin to the first stars. The telescope was launched last Christmas Eve, although its enormous structure traveled folded for most of the time on the Ariane 5 rocket. Now, once unfolded, one of the most striking features of its structure is the enormous sunshield, the shield that insulates its "eyes" from the blinding and intense energy of the Sun. Because some of its components must be at temperatures of -210 degrees Celsius to function properly. Created with a material similar to that used in thermal blankets and the size of a tennis court, it has five layers that allow it to operate normally. "In the end, it had to be twice the size of the napkin, because otherwise it would act like a kind of sail and the solar winds would make the telescope spin out of control," astrophysicist Macarena García Marín, ESA researcher and scientist for the MIRI instrument, one of the four on board the space observatory, explains to ABC. Also remarkable are its 18 gold-coated mirrors, which, once extended, created a 6.5-meter "super mirror" that now shows all its power. MORE INFORMATION What NASA is playing for with the first images from the James Webb Telescope But, up to this point, the project suffered all kinds of ups and downs. Initially, a mission was planned that would cost half a million dollars and would be launched in 2007, a kind of "low-cost" telescope. But Dan Goldin, NASA administrator for most of the 1990s, thought it would be "too modest," and that its mirror, the main tool for seeing better and farther, should be eight meters in diameter instead of the four originally planned (Hubble's is 2.5 meters). Even more turbulent years followed: up to 16 launch date delays, including a crisis in 2011 that threatened to end the mission ("the scientific community came together to demand that the project continue, and in the end it went ahead," recalls García Marín, who has been involved with the James Webb project since beginning her doctorate in 2003) and, more recently, a pandemic, which forced the postponement of many of the planned tests and several launch dates. Because it wasn't just funding that was responsible for the delay. It was also the observatory's own characteristics. The James Webb—named not after an astronomer, but after one of the main driving forces behind the Apollo program—orbits 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, much farther away than Hubble, which is about 600 kilometers away, which prevents astronaut missions from being able to go and repair it, as happened with its predecessor. "There is talk of possible robotic missions, but the truth is that the design is not intended for that," explains the astrophysicist. Everything had to work perfectly from the start, so the tests were extremely exhaustive. Like other space instruments, it will be updated periodically with software changes, but if there is any physical damage, it will be almost impossible to repair. In fact, the collision with a small meteorite fragment made those responsible fear the worst, and NASA has confirmed that one of the mirror segments was damaged; however, the Webb has been able to operate normally and offer the long-awaited first images. Furthermore, in anticipation, many components are duplicated so that, in the worst-case scenario, the telescope can continue operating, a task that will be carried out for at least five years, extendable to ten. NASA even estimates that it could be active for two decades. The four instruments on board: Near InfraRed Camera (NIRCam): This is an infrared camera with spectral coverage that will go from the edge of the visible to the near-infrared. Called 'the eye in the sky,' it will see the most distant objects in the Universe visible in this range. This is key to making the 18 mirrors work as one. Built by NASA. Near InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRSpec): Another spectroscope that also operates in the near-infrared. It is very ambitious, since it can see one hundred or more objects at once. Built by ESA. Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI): An instrument that will measure the mid-infrared wavelength range, something that differentiates it from Hubble. It observes cooler and more distant (and therefore older) objects than near-infrared. However, it requires a more powerful cooling system to operate at -210 degrees Celsius, so it has its own cryogenics system that works like a kind of refrigerator to keep it cooler than the other instruments. It was developed in collaboration between NASA and ESA. The Fine Guidance Sensor and Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (FGS/NIRISS) is a stabilizer manufactured by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) that will stabilize the observatory's line of sight during scientific observations. Measurements from the FGS are used both to control the overall orientation of the spacecraft and to steer the steering mirror to stabilize the image. Built by the CSA, NIRCam and MIRI have starlight-blocking coronagraphs to be able to observe faint targets such as exoplanets and circumstellar disks close to bright stars. The key to its life lies in the fuel: having a very wide orbit, trajectory corrections will have to be made, a "boost" that returns the observatory to its place. Once it's finished, the telescope will leave orbit and disappear into the Solar System. "And that's how it should be; it's one of the requirements to avoid increasing the space debris that already exists in our orbit." But until that moment arrives, James Webb will send us images of something we've never seen: the light from the first galaxies. Not only that, it will also be able to spot potentially habitable exoplanets. For García Marín, the James Webb's role in history will not be defined until its mission ends, possibly in the 2040s: "The most incredible thing will be what we're not expecting."
