AMOS’ optics on-board the James Webb Telescope!

The James Webb Telescope (JWST), the biggest space telescope ever built, launched on Christmas day 2021, will revolutionize astronomy and science in the same way than its predecessor Hubble did. Its tremendous size and its capability to operate in the infrared will make it a unique instrument to peer through dust and cosmic distance up to the dawn of the universe to see the first stars, to characterize potentially habitable exoplanets, observe faint objects in the Kuiper belt, etc.

The James Webb Telescopes embarked the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) instrument for which AMOS manufactured various optics. MIRI is composed both of a camera and a spectrograph that see light in the mid-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum, with wavelengths that are longer than our eyes see. MIRI’s camera will provide wide-field, broadband imaging that will continue the breathtaking astrophotography that has made Hubble so universally admired. The spectrograph will enable medium-resolution spectroscopy, providing new physical details of the distant objects it will observe.

AMOS delivered key optical components of this instrument: ten aspheric mirrors and two prisms for the imager of the instrument, and various flat and elliptical mirrors for the instrument itself. Those were integrated by our partners CSL (BE) and CEA (FR) into the instrument.

AMOS is proud to see that the work done years ago will now start its actual operational life aboard the most ambitious space telescope ever launched. We are eager to see the first pictures acquired through our optics and coming in from this revolutionary instrument.