James Webb Space Telescope

Space exploration in 2021 will see some major milestones to look forward to. From maiden flights to fiery endings, long-awaited launches to history-making first steps, here are some of the biggest upcoming events in space exploration this year.

A next-generation space observatory has inched closer to lift-off, with NASA unfolding the James Webb Space Telescope’s five-layer sunshield in the same way it expects it to after arriving in orbit, as part of successful testing here on Earth.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has passed a major milestone, completing its prelaunch environmental testing after being subjected to weeks of acoustic and sine-vibration tests to determine whether it can withstand the rigors of a rocket launch.

NASA and ESA have announced that the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope has been delayed to October 2021. A recently-completed schedule risk assessment recommended the delay, due to challenges raised by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The James Webb Space Telescope has crossed another milestone on the path to its long-awaited launch. NASA engineers have now completed a deployment test, unfurling the telescope’s gigantic mirror into the configuration it will take in space.

Scientists have now come up with a new way of quickly identifying oxygen in the atmospheres of distant worlds, with plans to apply the technique to the observations of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope which is slated to launch next year.

NASA has completed a milestone test of the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) sunshield, which will protect the flagship observatory from the Sun’s radiation as it unravels the secrets of the cosmos.

The final pieces have fallen into place for NASA’s next generation orbiting observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope.

​​A team of scientists from Cornell University has created a reference catalog detailing the “light-fingerprints” of worlds orbiting our Sun, in the hope that it will help future telescopes to uncover the true natures of distant exoplanets.

​​NASA has announced yet another delay for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), following the publication of a report from the Independent Review Board (IRB) set up to assess the progress of the project in the wake of multiple setbacks.

The launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been delayed once again, with a new window set for May 2020. The next-generation space telescope had previously been set to launch into orbit atop an Ariane 5 rocket from ESA’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, in the Spring of 2019.

​The search for extraterrestrial life has shifted gears over the last five years or so, and is unlikely to slow down as NASA prepares to unleash a couple of powerful new exoplanet-hunting tools, starting with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) set for launch in April.