Webb’s Most Sensitive Instrument Reaches Operating Temperature

As of April 13th, 2022, the coldest instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope, the Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) has reached the temperature necessary to begin scientific operations.

“We spent years practicing for that moment, running through the commands and the checks that we did on MIRI. It was kind of like a movie script: Everything we were supposed to do was written down and rehearsed. When the test data rolled in, I was ecstatic to see it looked exactly as expected and that we have a healthy instrument.” — Mike…