As a lot of you know work has been really demanding the last couple months.  But what you might not have known, is that we’ve been working incredibly well as a team, and overcome some crazy problems and schedule challenges.  It’s felt like a really really hard test, where every time we do something right another task gets thrown at us.  The only way it worked is because we have an AMAZING team, that has been working together for years now, and knows the telescope details all the way to the heart.  We’ve been dealing with problems immediately, efficiently, and with the careful-high-speed insticts that an aerospace program demands.

This week we are loading 6 mirrors into the cryo-vac chamber at XRCF (Marshall Space Flight Center).  This is HUGE, because at the end of this test we will have put approximately half of JWST’s mirror segments through cryo testing, and have also put one all the way through final polish and testing.

PR Newswire (and CNN) picked up a couple articles today and yesterday about this accomplishment.  They are linked here if you’re interested. 

Mirror Testing at NASA Breaks Superstitious Myths

Ball Aerospace Ships JWST Mirrors to MSFC (this is the one CNN picked up)

Softpedia JWST Mirrors Move to the XRCF

And some more really great photos of all 6 mirrors!