The deployment of the massive sun shield is one step closer.
NASA officials said in a statement that the deployable tower assembly was extended on Wednesday.
The space between the part of the telescope that houses the enormous mirror and scientific instruments and the part of the telescope that houses the electronics and the bus is created by the James Webb Space Telescope's DTA.
NASA said in the statement that it creates enough distance to allow the sensitive mirrors and instruments to cool down. This gap will allow room for the sun shield to fully unfold.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope mission is live.
The Christmas launch of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.
NASA engineers began to send commands for the telescope to extend the DTA at 10:00 a.m. On Wednesday. The process took six hours and 39 minutes to complete. NASA said in the statement.
The James Webb Space Telescope is on a 29-day journey to its destination, which is a point 930,000 miles away from Earth. It is expected to take about five days to deploy its sun shield.
The observatory needs a sun shield to keep its instruments and equipment cool.
NASA said in a description of the deployment process that the sun shield cover and the flap will be released to help offset the solar pressure on the large sun shield. The sun shield is expected to be unfurled on Friday.
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