NASA Invites Media for Live Interviews on James Webb Space Telescope

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Jan 15, 2016, 05:18 ET

WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA scientists and engineers working on the agency's James Webb Space Telescope will be available for live satellite interviews from 6 to 11:30 a.m. EST on Friday, Jan. 22. They'll discuss the new technology involved in building the world's largest and most powerful space telescope, and the groundbreaking science it will perform after its 2018 launch.

Available for interviews are:

John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington
Bill Ochs, James Webb Space Telescope project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
John Durning, James Webb Space Telescope deputy project manager at Goddard
Paul Geithner, James Webb Space Telescope deputy project manager (technical) at Goddard
Jody Davis, aerospace engineer at Goddard

To participate, media must contact Claire Saravia at 240-461-9987 or [email protected] by 8 p.m. EST on Thursday, Jan. 21. A Spanish-speaking scientist is available by request.

The Webb telescope, widely considered the successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, will find the very first galaxies that formed, answer fundamental questions about the evolution of our universe, and help in the search for life and habitable planets. With its powerful infrared vision, Webb will pierce through dense dust clouds, parting the curtains to observe stars and planetary systems forming today.

This premiere space telescope is being assembled at Goddard. The primary mirror, which currently is being attached to the telescope structure, is made up of 18 hexagonal mirror segments that form one large mirror measuring approximately 21 feet in diameter. The tennis court-sized sunshield on the spacecraft has a sun protection factor of 1 million, and will protect the mirrors and science instruments from heat generated by spacecraft electronics and the sun. The entire observatory will fold origami-style into an Ariane 5 rocket and unfurl in space.

For prerecorded interviews and b-roll, available starting Jan. 21, go to:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?12123

For more information about the James Webb Space Telescope, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/webb

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SOURCE NASA