As the prime contractor, Northrop Grumman led the industry team for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the largest, most complex and powerful space telescope ever built. […]
James Webb Space Telescope

As the prime contractor, Northrop Grumman led the industry team for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the largest, most complex and powerful space telescope ever built. […]
What if you’re trying to build humankind’s most powerful space telescope – one that must survive the intense heat of launch and the extreme cold of space – all without giving an inch? […]
How do you unfold a five-layer sunshield the size of a tennis court orbiting in space from the ground? With practice. A lot of practice. […]
[…]
The James Webb Space Telescope will orbit far beyond the reach of human repairmen, so engineers only got one shot to get it right. To prepare for this, Northrop Grumman conduced some of the most intense tests ever devised. […]
In the Spring of 2018, questions from the media, Congress and the science community swirled around NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope program. The headlines weren’t kind. […]
The story of how NASA, together with an industry team led by Northrop Grumman, achieved the unprecedented: a tool for exploration of the deepest mysteries of our existence. […]
From day one, everyone involved in the program knew that when NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope arrived on orbit it would change humanity’s understanding of our cosmic origins. If it worked… […]
Stories and reflections on building the largest, most complex telescope in history from employees at Northrop Grumman. […]
The James Webb Space Telescope is peering into the past to unlock the mysteries of our universe. Learn about the technical details of this ambitious mission. […]
By Natalie Perlin and David Larter Four Employees Share Their Experience Shaping the Webb Launch By transforming our understanding of the universe and our place in it, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) has the potential to change the course of humankind. Webb has already transformed the lives of many Northrop Grumman employees who worked […]
Mei-Li joined Northrop Grumman in 2016 as an intern. Today, she’s a mechanical design engineer on the James Webb Space Telescope, working on the mechanical ground systems engineering team. Tell us about your role on Webb. My team is in charge of designing all of the Webb equipment that’s not going to space, called mechanical […]
While the payload of a space launch garners the most attention, it’s the spacecraft bus that carries and supports every aspect of the mission for the life of that craft. […]