(reporter) NASA is giving us a behind the scenes look at their largest and most powerful
space telescope. Here to tell us a little bit about it is the James Webb
Space Telescope Manager Bill Ochs, thanks for joining us.
(Bill Ochs) Sure. (reporter) What is the James Webb Space Telescope and how is it different
from the Hubble Space Telescope. (Bill Ochs) SO, JWST is the next
great NASA Observatories. Two main differences with Hubble
is we are a lot bigger than Hubble. Our primary mirror is about 7 times the size
of Hubble mirror and we are about 3 stories high and about
width of a tennis court. That allows us to go back and look
at some the first stars and galaxies that were formed after the
big bang. (reporter) Once it launches, the Webb Telescope
will travel a million miles from Earth. How do you know it will work
so far away? (Bill Ochs) So the key to any NASA program whether its a million miles from Earth
or whether its in low Earth orbit, its a very rigorous test program. That is we've spent years
developing on JWST, whether it's working or doing testing we do here at Goddard
or whether it's down in Texas, where we do some of our cryogenic testing
out in Northrop Grumman, out in California were we put our final pieces together.
the test program we have looks at every aspects of the telescope to make sure it works.
(reporter) Webb is the largest telescope ever built
How do you build a 3 story tall telescope on Earth, for what
it will encounter in space? (Bill Ochs) So the best way to do it is to start with small pieces
and you start testing at the smallest piece and build it up, so what have seen behind
me and looking in our cleanroom is the completed telescope
integrated with our four instruments, and what we are doing right now is checking
out the optics on it to make sure they are okay, after we've gone through environmental testing
and the environmental testing we did is to simulate the most violent environment
it will see, which is the rocket ride, so right now we are making sure everything
works after that. Then we will be actually done here at Goddard and ready to ship down to
Johnson Space Center. (reporter) NASA recently discovered 7
Earth size planets orbiting a nearby star, will Webb study these planets?
(Bill Ochs) Yes, one of the things we will do, we will look at all the different planets, or many
different planets that have been discovered recently. We will be able to look at the chemical
makeup of the atmosphere of that planet, to see if really does have the basic elements to
be able have life. (reporter) Webb is going
to do amazing science once it's in space, what are you most excited for?
(Bill Ochs) Probably the most exciting thing is the things we don't know, with Hubble
it was the same way. It's really the most exciting sciences it found was the things that were never
anticipated. Its really thinking about well what will we find that we never
thought of before. (reporter) Where can we learn more?
(Bill Ochs) JWST.nasa.gov (reporter) Thanks so much for
joining us. (Bill Ochs) Thank You.