Webb Telescope Travels to Launch Site

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Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
 
Video imagery:
  • James Webb Space Telescope in cleanroom: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
  • James Webb Space Telescope stow and transport: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
  • MN Colibri ship at sea: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
  • Beauty montage, James Webb Space Telescope in cleanroom: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Writer: Leah Ramsay
Designer: Leah Hustak, Joseph Olmsted
Science review: Dr. Kelly Lepo
Education review: Jim Manning
Music from Music for Non-Profits

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Squares of images of celestial bodies move up. A white line moves down and another across. Text, News from the Universe. The text is above an image of Jupiter.
 
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October 14, 2021. Webb telescope travels to launch site. A person in a crane platform works on the upright telescope.
 
Text, Testing of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is complete. Time-lapse of people on the floor of the hangar. A crane moves metallic material into place. The telescope is lowered.
 
Text, The telescope was carefully packed for its final journey on Earth: travel to its launch site in South America. The telescope is moved horizontally and lowered into a case.
 
Text, The route was carefully planned, noting details like potholes and low-hanging traffic lights. The incased telescope is pulled from the hangar by a truck and moves down a street.
 
Text, The trip included a 16-day journey by sea and through the Panama Canal. A ship with the letters M N on the side moves through water.
 
Text, Webb arrived safely in French Guiana on October 12. Next it travels by road to the spaceport in Kourou. The ship at sea in the distance.
 
Text, The long journey of Webb's conceptualization, development, engineering, and testing is at an end... The telescope lens sticks out through an assemblage of gold hexagonal panels.
 
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Text, Next it will explore the final frontier of the unseen early universe, the first galaxies, and unknown exoplanets.
 
The telescope in the hangar with two cylinders in an A-frame in front of the gold panels -- the top panels lower.
 
Text, This news was brought to you in part by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.