All language subtitles for B T W S05E02 1080p WEB h264-BAE_track3_[eng]

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- The James Webb Space Telescope

is the largest and most
powerful telescope in space.

Uncovering secrets of
how galaxies were formed

and how the universe
was created.

- The James Webb Space
Telescope is unraveling

the mysteries of the universe.

- We'll meet the scientists,
engineers and visionaries

who brought this
telescope to life.

- The early days, just a
few people, and a whiteboard,

how do we build something
that could actually work?

- We're on a mission to unlock
secrets from the deepest,

darkest parts of the universe.

- We can actually see
light that was emitted

more than 13 billion years ago.

We literally traveling in time.

- It took so much ingenuity,
collaboration and dedication

to design and develop
this telescope.

I can't wait to see
what we discover.

- Being a part of something
bigger than yourself,

that is really why I did this.

- It's time to go
"Behind the Wings".

This is gonna be cool.

I am Myrna James.

I am a science journalist

specializing in all things
technology.

Here at Wings over the
Rockies Air & Space Museum,

we transport the magic of space
to you right here on Earth.

Today, we're traveling
through space and time

alongside the James
Webb Space Telescope

which is the most capable
telescope in the cosmos.

Using infrared technology

and a revolutionary
segmented mirror,

Webb can gather six
times more light

than the Hubble Space Telescope.

The Webb is uncovering how
the universe was created

and is answering
questions so profound

we didn't even know we had them.

With the ability
to observe galaxies

more than 13 billion
light years from Earth,

get ready to travel
through time.

Webb launched in 2021

but the idea was sparked
more than 20 years ago

at NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center.

- It's human nature somehow
to be fascinated by space

and our place in the universe.

So I was taken by
that, just like anyone.

When I started on
the Webb in 1997,

there were just a few of us.

It was just an idea

but in front of us
was to figure out

how do we build something
that could actually work.

The Webb mission was
conceived in the late 1980s,

early 1990s, to connect the dots

between the achievement
of NASA's COBE satellite

which showed us the oldest
light in the universe.

Around the same time,

the Hubble Space
Telescope was launched.

- [Announcer] Two,
one and lift off

of the space shuttle Discovery

with the Hubble Space Telescope,
our window on the universe.

- And it took its deepest
image of the cosmos

that it was capable
of doing at that time

and that deep field image,

so it looked back
in time to a point

when the universe was
about a billion years old.

The EPOCH that COBE saw,

the universe was a few
hundred thousand years old.

And so between those two
EPOCHs is a mysterious,

poorly studied EPOCH
that was referred to then

as the cosmic dark zone.

And it's a great
scientific interest

because that is the point in
the evolution of the universe

when the first stars
and galaxies formed.

The answers to all our
questions are in starlight

and we have to be clever enough
to extract that information.

- In order to create a telescope

that can see further
back in time,

NASA needed to invent
new technology that
could gather light

from some of the first stars
and galaxies in the universe.

But first, they had to
overcome the challenges

that plagued the earlier
space telescopes.

Hubble, for instance, required
hands-on human repairs.

- A lot of people today
don't even remember

but when the Hubble Space
Telescope was launched,

the primary mirror actually
wasn't quite the right shape

and could not focus
light properly.

- The significant
spherical aberration

appears to be present
in the optics.

- There was actually
multiple repair missions

and upgrade missions for Hubble.

The very first one was really
to fix the blurry vision

and then from then on,

we were really upgrading
the instruments.

John Grunsfeld was an astronaut

who helped to upgrade
the instruments.

- The Hubble Space Telescope
was launched in 1990.

In 1992, I became an astronaut.
At the edge of the telescope

which is 2.4 meters across,

the shape of the mirror
was wrong by about 1/40th

of the width of a human hair

but that was enough to make
the images slightly fuzzy.

So for an astronomer,
that was bad.

So instead of being
a great observatory

in all this anticipation,

it was a sort of
good observatory or
maybe a little less.

As an astronomer going to
the Hubble Space Telescope,

it's kind of the holy grail
of an astronaut's mission.

And I had the
unbelievable fortune

of being able to go up
three times to the Hubble

and do all kinds of repairs
and upgrades to the telescope

such that now Hubble's coming
up on its 33rd birthday

on orbit and
everything's working

and we're still doing
incredible science.

- [Myrna] So you were
actually able to get inside

the telescope here?

- Yep, now clearly
this is just a model,

the real telescope
is five times bigger,

about the size of a tour bus.

And what you can see is that
the telescope has handrails

that we could use to
climb around the telescope

but more importantly, it
was designed to be modular,

to be fixed, not only to
put in new electronics

but to put in new
scientific instruments.

And so we were able to
open these doors on orbit.

You know I was able to
climb inside the telescope

to take out the old
scientific instruments

and put new ones in.

And so you can see this
opening was big enough,

even for my spacewalking
partner, Steve Smith,

who's about 6'2", in this
spacesuit to fit inside.

- So you did eight space
walks, does it ever get old?

- I wondered during training
whether I would ever get tired

of getting into the spacesuit
and going into the big pool,

we called a Neutral
Buoyancy Laboratory.

You know, I have spent
hundreds and hundreds of dives

in the space suit practicing
and even that is not old.

Eight spacewalks - every one is
just spectacular and magical.

I was on the end
of the robotic arm

moving back towards the
Hubble Space Telescope,

when all of a sudden I
thought, is this real?

You know I just can't believe
that I'm here out in a vacuum

in my space suit with the
Hubble Space Telescope

orbiting the earth going
17,500 miles an hour.

You know, it was kinda
silly but I just reached out

with my index finger
and touched the Hubble

to make sure it was real.

And then of course it was
all work from then on.

- So the ability to
upgrade the Hubble on orbit

is one reason that it's
still so productive

and still up there
after 33 years.

And that's not true
about the Webb telescope.

It's actually about
a million miles out.

- The James Webb Space Telescope
is an infrared observatory,

that's light from heat.

And so we have to put the
James Webb Space Telescope

really far away from the earth

so that it wouldn't
see the Earth's warmth

but that has a downside.

It's too far away, it's a
million of miles from earth.

So the James Webb Space
Telescope is high stakes

that we can't go fix it.

And so a lot of effort
was put into making sure

that it would work
the first time.

It's gonna be amazing
what we find out

but I think the
biggest discovery

from the James Webb
Space Telescope

is probably gonna be
the answer to a question

we haven't thought of.

Something we truly discover
that we never knew about.

- What did it take

to build the most
powerful space telescope?

With any project as ambitious
as the Webb telescope,

it takes thousands of
people and many, many years.

For some of them,

their entire career was
riding on its success

and it actually went perfectly.

Webb was primarily built,
engineered and designed

at Northrop Grumman Space Park.

The components were
manufactured in laboratories

across the globe,

then were sent back to the
Space Park campus for assembly.

- The telescope itself
and all the components

came from different
places across the U.S.

and across the globe.

And over behind me,

that's where we did all
of the engineering work

to come up with the design,
to come up with the ideas

of how we were gonna put
it together, et cetera.

- So Charlie, why are
telescopes so important?

- What made Galileo think he
needed to make a telescope?

It is to go see the things
that we can't see

with our naked eye.

So we call it a telescope but
it's so much more than that.

There are unbelievable
quantities of materials

that went into that telescope
from all around the world.

Exotic materials that
are really lightweight,

some that are very
hard, very stiff,

all kinds of different
materials that engineers used

to put together the telescope.

And it took millions of
hours to design it, build it,

test it, and get it
ready for launch.

I spent about 20 plus
years as an engineer

working on the telescope,

now it's time for the scientists
to use it for 20 plus years

to make new discoveries,

to find out things
we don't know yet.

- Normally in a project,

if you count up the number of
miracles that have to occur,

if you get above one,
you're in big trouble.

On the Webb, we had
10 technologies that
we had to invent

just to make our concept doable.

We realized that we had
two enormous problems

that almost stopped the
project dead in its tracks.

This big mirror was
bigger in diameter

than the biggest rocket
that was problem number one.

- This mirror was so big it
couldn't even be launched

in a rocket, it has to
unfold and deploy in space?

- That's right, so
Webb's mirrors are huge,

they're six and a half meters

and so the fairing
that we can launch from

are about five meters

so they're just a little
over a meter or two big.

So what we had to do is
fold back two sections,

one side on the left side,

one side on the right
side of the mirror

so that they can fit
into the launch vehicle,

kinda standing
straight up and down.

- Problem number two is that
to build an infrared telescope,

the telescope has to
be very, very cold

because everything
above absolute zero
emits infrared light.

If we didn't make the JWST cold,

it would be blinded by
its own infrared emission.

How cold do we have to make it?

Really, really cold,
almost -400 Fahrenheit.

The JW sun shield has an
SPF of more than a million.

If you had it on the beach,
you'd be very well protected

and it enables the Webb to
achieve this low temperature.

- Most telescopes have
a sun shield of sorts.

What you're probably more
familiar with are barrels

around a telescope
that eliminates light

from entering the telescopes
that's not exactly on axis.

That's what the sun shield
on Webb was trying to do.

And so the way that it works
was if this light over there

is the sun and I wanna
look at the dark of space,

the sun shield was always
shielding the light

from the telescope, so
my eyes in this case,

so that I never see the sun

and I can look the
other direction

into the darkness to look at
the first stars and galaxies.

- From its sun shield, which
is the size of a tennis court,

to the primary mirror which
is 21 feet in diameter,

the Webb telescope is
an engineering marvel.

- Engineering is an
empirical science.

You have to build
prototypes, test them,

see what went wrong, build
more prototypes and so forth.

And on the Webb, we were
able to do all of that.

One of the things that
makes our work difficult

is that we have to work

in these very, very
clean environments

wearing special garments.

And this is one of
those clean rooms.

This is really one
of the largest rooms

like this in the world.

You can see the people are
wearing these white suits

called bunny suits.

And that's because the
dirtiest thing in these rooms

is the people.

The number of people that can
be in the room at any one time

is limited.

It's cleaner than the
medical operating room,

this whole brown wall
is a giant HEPA filter.

So the air is constantly flowing
horizontally in this room

through that filter.

The goal is to remove every
single particle in the air

that can get into the hardware.

- The James Webb Space
Telescope is not like the Hubble

which could be repaired in orbit

because it's a
million miles out.

When the scientists
launched Webb,

they had one shot
to get it right

so they implemented of course,

extensive testing before
it ever left the ground.

- The testing is as
important as the flight

and so it becomes a
constraint on the design.

Every element of design
we have to include,

how will we test that?

What hardware do
we need to test it?

We call it Ground
Support Equipment or GSE.

So this is one of the
payload areas at Goddard

where we're testing
space flight hardware

and much of the testing we do

is done in space simulation
chambers that simulate

the vacuum and
temperature of space.

And so, these large objects
are space simulation chambers

where space light hardware
is being tested as we speak.

These are giant vacuum chambers
that simulate the vacuum

and temperature and overall
environmental conditions

of space.

The Webb science
instruments were tested here

for many, many months

to ensure that they would work
properly in the Webb mission.

And so to do testing, we have
to simulate the environment

as best we can
here on the earth.

In addition to making sure

that the hardware
will work in space,

we have to make sure
that it can survive

the rocket flight into space.

So we typically have to
simulate that as well.

And these big steel doors

are labs that contain
giant vibration tables

where we will put the payload
on the vibration table

and shake it to simulate
the rocket flight to space.

And we were able to
do all of the testing

that we needed to
do to be confident

that this enormously complex
thing would actually work.

- Once it was built,
the big question was,

can it successfully be launched?

- Being in the mission control
center with 100 other people

that had also poured
their hearts and souls

into this telescope,

the launch was nerve
wracking, to say the least.

There still were some risks.

You know we had a lot of single
point failures to overcome.

It was also very celebratory

because we did have
a lot of confidence

in our partners at Arianespace

to get us up into orbit safely.

- [Announcer] From Jean-Luc
Voer, all systems are go.

We're inside a minute now and
the command will be issued

to ignite the solid
rocket boosters.

The James Webb Space
Telescope will be on its way.

And we have engine start.

And lift off.

Decollage, lift off from
a tropical rainforest

to the edge of time itself,
James Webb begins a voyage

back to the birth
of the universe.

- Back in the Mission
Ops Center in Baltimore,

we were kinda like, "Okay, get
to work, it's now our time."

We still had six more
months of deployments

and commissioning
to get this thing

to do what it's now doing
and exceed expectations.

The successful launch,
that was just the beginning

and now we've turned it
over to the science teams

to find out what they
can with our data.

- There's no one better to
talk to about what goes on

with this telescope
than Kenny McKenzie.

- I had a eighth grade
social studies teacher,

her name was Christa McAuliffe,

she perished in the
Challenger disaster

and kinda motivated me to
enter the space business.

I entered in 1984,

I've spent a lot of time with
a lot of different missions

but beyond all that, this is
the most exciting one so far.

Basically, we're on the campus
of Johns Hopkins University.

This is the Mueller building.

It's the home of James Webb

Science and Data
Processing Center

and now mission
control for James Webb.

During the commissioning and
instrument activation phase,

both of these two rooms
were completely full

with probably 100
engineers at any one time.

- So in this room is where
the deployment of the mirrors

was commanded really.

- We conducted all of
the deployment activities

from solar array deployment

which was the primary and
most crucial deployment

that we had to do
for us to have power.

So the solar array
has to come out.

If you don't have a solar array,

your mission is basically done.

So that was a very exciting,

very positive start
to our mission.

- [Myrna] What was the mood
in the room at that time?

- [Kenny] It was
very, very nervous,

of course, as you
would fully expect.

People were on their
feet, everybody had a job

and we all worked
very well together

and we were able to
deploy it perfectly.

- [Announcer] And we have a
fully deployed JWST observatory.

(group applauding)

- [Crew Member] Yes.

- After 30 days, we were elated.

I mean, we were tired
but we were elated.

We had another five
and a half months to go

with all the instrument
commissioning activities

but we felt comfortable

that all the subsystems
were working.

The communications were good.

Beyond all reasonable
expectations worked as designed.

- That's incredible.

- It was very incredible.

- [Myrna] It's really just the
beginning of a whole new era.

- You know, we're still a baby,

we've been up on orbit
for just over 12 months.

We continue to explore
and develop and uncover

amazing items,

it's a good time to be
part of the Webb program.

- Okay, this is the real time
screen of what's happening?

- Yeah, depicted on this
screen basically is the view

of the observatory
as it sits in space.

We use the deep space network

which is three different
complexes located geographically

around the world.

Gives you a visualization
of where this observatory

and a telescope are pointed.

- So scientists from
all over the world

are so excited about this data.

How do they use it?

- For each program, it looks
at a different part of the sky.

And the longer you stare,

the more light that you're
actually gonna receive.

Some of these observations

may be in the order
of two or three hours

and some are up to
20, 25, 30 hours.

- [Myrna] So where
are we in the process

of getting this data?

- We're at the tip
of the iceberg.

We were very successful
in conserving fuel,

so we anticipate having
a 20-year fuel budget

which will allow us to
do imaging and so forth

as long as the instruments

are able to allow
us to take data.

- Over here is actually
one of the main places

that we align the
telescope from.

And up here you can see, we
call it the commissioning flow.

These are all the steps that
we did to align the telescope

over about a three month period.

As we went through
the entire process,

you know we X'd them all out.

And there's one particular
step in the middle there

where we got the very first
images that were focused

and that's why it says champagne

because after all those years,

that was the moment we knew
we built the right telescope.

- Wow, the moment to celebrate?

- The moment to celebrate.

When you look at it from
the 20,000 foot level,

things went amazingly well,

probably better than
any of us expected.

And the thing that
was really special

is that when we got to
the final performance,

it's almost performing twice
as well as we expected.

- [Myrna] So why is this
so important to you, Lee?

- These kinds of missions,

these missions that
bring back amazing images

and help us understand how
we got here, they inspire.

They inspire young people

and I think that's
what it's all about.

It shows what human beings
are capable of doing

when we work together.

And maybe that's a
lesson that we can apply

to other challenges that
we have here on Earth.

- It's so inspiring
for science in general.

- We could be
learning new physics,

physics that then relates

to what's happening
here on the earth.

We still have a lot
of the universe that
we don't understand

from dark energy to dark matter

and the Webb telescope will
contribute to that as well.

It's been a little over
a year and of course,

you know we've come really far

in terms of how well it's
performing, getting it operating

but from a science perspective,

we're really just getting going.

From now on, every
field is a deep field

and that's sort of
the way it's been.

This is gonna be a very
exciting few years,

maybe some of the most
exciting few years

in the history of
understanding our universe.

- The telescope is
built, deployed,

and the science is rolling
in, the data is epic.

So you were the
principal investigator

for that first batch of images,

how were those images
received by the public?

- It was a very
interesting process,

it took us years to
prepare for this.

And of course, we had
this task of demonstrating

to the world that
this $10 billion
observatory was worth it.

That we could produce something
that anybody would look

at and say, wow, this gotta
be making amazing science.

And that included producing
these beautiful color images.

And so, of course, we
were worried about that.

We were nervous, I mean,
can we actually do that?

We didn't know what the
images would look like.

Like this is such
a new observatory

with such new capabilities,

that we could try and
predict what we would see

but we couldn't
really predict it.

And all the data that
the observatory takes

really is the
property of the world.

And so, eventually
it all becomes public

and anybody can
download the data

and you don't even
have to be a scientist

to download the images
and look at them.

- So Klaus, you saw
the first images

as they were coming down
from this telescope.

- Right, I saw the
first color images,

the first science images that
we took, the ones you've seen.

For example, the cosmic cliffs
or the first deep field.

The primary feeling I had
was really of loneliness

because the first
image came down,

it was sort of late at night.

I didn't download it
here in the office,

I actually downloaded it
in my basement at home.

So I was sitting there this
evening in my basement all alone

and I was looking at this
image of the deepest view

of the universe that
anybody had seen

and it was profound loneliness

because I couldn't
share it with anybody.

- So the colors are gorgeous
and what do they mean?

- So the colors mean
something physically.

So when we pick a filter,

what that does is it actually
picks out a signature

of a specific molecule
or a specific element.

So here I have pulled up
an image that uses a filter

that sees organic molecules.

So 4.6 billion years ago, our
solar system looked like that.

All this stuff
around you see here,

that's the organic material
that we are made of

that ends up on the
planets in there.

- [Myrna] It makes me feel
like I'm part of the universe.

- Oh, you are very much
part of the universe, right?

As Carl Sagan said,

"We're the universe's way
of thinking about itself."

- So we're starting
to get this data now,

is it creating more
questions than answers?

- Oh yes,

it's creating more questions
than answers, absolutely.

And I think that's where
we want to be, right?

If we are starting to
run out of questions,

we are not doing
something right,

that's not how science works.

We wanna answer questions but
we want to make more questions

than we have answers.

There'll be future telescopes

because we need that to answer

all those new questions we have.

- You and so many people
have dedicated their careers

to this project.

How does it feel now that it's
up and it's running so well?

- It's performing better than
expected across the board.

And that is true in terms
of its lifetime expectancy,

and its optical performance
is about a factor of two

better than the
expected performance.

How stable it is when
it looks at an image

is about a factor of seven
better than expectations.

So yeah, it's incredible

to see how well it's
performing up there.

- One of the great
things about science

is that we learn new things

and often those new
things that we learn

overturn a previous idea.

That's certainly
gonna be the case

with the James Webb
Space Telescope.

It sees the universe so much
more clearly, so much deeper,

I think there's some
big surprises in store

that James Webb will give us.

- The Webb is giving humanity

its very first high definition
view of the infrared universe

and the view is fantastic.

- The great thing that
I took away from Webb

and being part of this project
is helping to build something

that fundamentally contributes
to humanity's knowledge.

- My dream is to continue
trying to do hard things.

I love the idea that I've
gotten to work with a team

that has enabled the science
classes that my kids will take

aren't going to be the same
science classes I took.

That's very exciting.

- Building the first
segmented space telescope,

this is sort of like
landing on the moon

for telescopes in a sense
that it's the first of a kind

but a segmented
telescope is scalable.

We can build bigger and bigger.

And then after that,

we can think about
assembling telescopes

that are made up of
segments like this.

And that's what we're
gonna need someday

if we wanna take an image
of a planet just like Earth

around another star
in high definition.

The Webb telescope is the
first step on that journey.

- With its successful
launch and deployment,

Webb is expected to support
scientific observation

for about 20 years unveiling
the secrets of the universe

one discovery at a time.

All of us at Wings Over the
Rockies Air & Space Museum

look forward to uncovering more
mysteries beyond our planet

and sharing them with you.

We'll see you next time
on "Behind the Wings".

(bright upbeat music)