"Unfolding Webb's sun shield in space is an incredible milestone, crucial to the success of the mission," said Greg Robinson, Webb's program director at Nasa Headquarters.
"Thousands of parts had to work with precision for this marvel of engineering to fully unfurl. The team has accomplished an audacious feat with the complexity of this deployment - one of the boldest undertakings yet for Webb."
It's worth noting that all the previous testing was done on Earth, under gravity conditions. This was the first time the shield had been unfurled in the unique "Zero-G" environment of space. "The first time, and we nailed it," enthused Alphonso Stewart, Nasa's Webb deployment systems lead.
"There was a lot of joy, a lot of relief," added Hillary Stock, the sunshield deployments lead at Northrop.
Fun stuff. Three weeks to L2 orbital insertion. Fingers crossed.
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