World's largest space telescope now under construction in Utah

Technicians complete the primary mirror backplane support structure wing assemblies for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope at ATK's Space Components facility in Magna, Utah. ATK recently completed the fabrication of the primary mirror backplane support structure wing assemblies for prime contractor Northrop Grumman on the Webb telescope. Photo: Northrop Grumman/ATK, via NASA.

Aerospace contractor Alliant Techsystems is building what will be the world's largest space telescope in Magna, Utah. When completed, the James Webb Space Telescope is designed to be at least 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope, and will open our eyes to never-before-seen planets and galaxies. There's a Webb cam (hurr hurr, get it?) on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope website, where you can observe the construction process. They reached one big milestone on Friday, with the completion of a support structure wing, shown in the photograph above. (Thanks, @bwjones!)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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The Snowden Principle

Cicada Mania

Space coffin.
- Cowicide
  
  Did Leonard Nimoy pass away?
vonbobo

That’s a satellite?

Tube satellites are so 20th century.
edgore

Will it be able to see Kolob?
- PhosPhorious
  
  Are you kidding? You’ll even be able to see Romney’s political career. THAT’S how powerful this thing is.
  - edgore
    
    I think you have confused telescopes with microscopes.
    - eldritch
      
      I think it’s more apt to say that Romney is “far out” rather than small and inconsequential, but both may be accurate.
http://twitter.com/ToddRomer Todd Romer

It’s good to see that Walter White and Jesse are back to cooking.
DreamboatSkanky

I see what you did way out there.
- http://gard3.com/ G3
  
  I saw what you did last summer 115,326 years ago.
nixiebunny

It’s quite an ambitious project. The idea is to build this huge Rube Goldberg contraption for many billions of dollars, then send it to a Lagrange point far away from Earth so that it will be inaccessible by repair crews, then tell it to unfurl itself and start working, with no human intervention.

A tall order.
- http://www.nogunarmy.com/ monstrinho
  
  Scientists recently dropped a package on parachutes that disengaged to drop it again so that it could be supported on hovering rocket boosters that lowered a big robot on wires to the surface of the planet mars. This seems trivial by comparison.
Casual_Economy

Why are these technicians wearing hair nets on their heads if they’re just going to let their huge beards hang out?
- eldritch
  
  The guy on the left of the image with the beard also has it netted.
- Cowicide
  
  Their beards are covered… I looked at the high resolution picture after I read your comment. See screenshot below.
  
  From what I understand, they were also forced to get brazilians as well.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DKQ6LPPTLNTI4S2C4WZQD5XZSE Brian

I thought the James Webb telescope was billions of dollars over budget and years late in development, In fact I thought it had been cancelled.
http://twitter.com/pickledbeatnik pickledbeatnik

Well, we get things right sometimes out here!
http://www.facebook.com/buddhaflow Sasha Shepherd

So are these telescopes pointed up, or down?
timquinn

Headline could be “Awesome Tech Being Assembled in a Clean Room” and we would have flocked to see it.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=6703269 Nils Lobie Weedøn

Is anyone else seeing a Star Destroyer with a dish thrown on top in that mock-up pic?