NASA’s Johnson Space Center’s “Chamber A” in Houston is an enormous thermal vacuum testing chamber and now appears to be opening its “mouth” to take in NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope for testing.

The telescope and the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) are two of the three major elements that comprise the Webb telescope Observatory flight system and are being lifted into the chamber in this photo. The other is the Spacecraft Element (spacecraft bus and sunshield), which is currently under construction at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems (NGAS) in Redondo Beach, Calif.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the scientific successor to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. It will be the most powerful space telescope ever built. It was assembled in a Class 10,000 cleanroom at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Webb is an international project led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency), and the Canadian Space Agency.

 Source: NASA