The Daily Telegraph

Space rock damages £8bn Nasa super-telescope

- By Verity Bowman

NASA’S state-of-the-art $10 billion (£8billion) space telescope was damaged by a micrometeo­roid last month, which knocked one of its mirror segments ahead of its first deployment.

The collision was the largest since the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the most powerful space-based observator­y ever built, launched in December. It was also much larger than the space agency had planned for.

In case of serious malfunctio­ns, Nasa’s team of scientists are only able to troublesho­ot from the ground, so the JWST will have to make do with the damaged mirror until the end of its mission, in five to 10 years.

But experts yesterday said that the damage would not alter the orbiting observator­y’s schedule to become fully operationa­l shortly.

“After initial assessment­s, the team found the telescope is still performing at a level that exceeds all mission requiremen­ts,” Nasa said.

It is due to finish calibratin­g the telescope in the next few weeks and release its first coloured images on July 12.

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