Preparing a space telescope for launch? Don't forget to remove the "lens cap"! ✅ A technician can be seen carefully removing the “lens cap,” or Aft Optics Subsystem cover, on our NASAWebb telescope. This important piece of protective equipment has kept the observatory’s instruments clean, contaminant-free, and safe from stray light while it was assembled and fully prepared for flight. Now that launch is so close, the cover has been removed to allow engineers freedom to continue packing up the rest of the observatory into its flight-like formation. Like a piece of origami artwork, Webb contains many movable parts, designed to fold themselves to a compact formation that fits inside a 16-foot (5-meter) rocket fairing for launch. The James Webb Space Telescope will be the world's premier space science observatory when it launches in 2021. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of ...