Here's how the James Webb Space Telescope is aligning its mirrors in deep space

The mirrors of the James Webb Space Telescope are fine-tuned to peer into the deep and distant universe.

The telescope's primary mirror and secondary mirror folded up and stowed in order to survive the liftoff. The telescope is close to reaching its deep-space destination and is starting to move mirror segments into alignment.

Marshall Perrin, deputy telescope scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, said in a NASA post that before the launch, the mirrors were all positioned with the pegs held snug in the sockets.

The pegs need to be removed from the sockets by about half an inch. This will allow the mirrors to be prepared in their starting positions for alignment.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope mission is live.

NASA engineers said during a press conference that it will take several months to align the mirror segments. The mirrors should be aligned by April 24.

"I like to think of it as a group of mirrors, all doing their own thing, singing their own tune in whatever key they're in," Jane Rigby, the operations project scientist, said during the press conference. "We have to make them work like a chorus, and that is a methodical, laborious process."

The process will require some patience, as the mirrors can be manipulated to high precision. The mirror segments can be adjusted as small as 10 nanometers, which is one tenth the width of a human hair. The first adjustments will be about a millimeter.

The mirror control system only moves one actuator at a time to reduce the complexity of the system electronics and to ensure safety. The team can move the individual mirror segments with the help of the tiny motor.
The telescope needs to be ultra-cool in order to perform its observations in the IR.

Each actuator can only be operated for a short period of time to limit the amount of heat put into the mirrors. The big moves for each segment are split into many, many short moves that happen at the same time.

The telescope is run under human supervision by the mission operations center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. It takes about a day to move all the segments. It's the same speed as the grass grows.

The mirrors and instruments will cool from the natural radiation after launch. The telescope's next major space maneuver is expected to take place on January 23, when the mission team expects it to execute an engine burn and glide towards its ultimate "parking spot" in space known as L2. The sun will be in this spot for its lifetime.
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