News
NASA’s Webb Telescope mirror crushes “most optimistic predictions” after final alignment
NASA says that the nascent James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) “optical performance…continues to be better than the…most optimistic predictions” after completing the alignment of its record-breaking mirror.
Between 7 and 14 years behind schedule and over budget by a factor of 2 to 10, an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket sent the Webb Telescope on its way to deep space on December 25th, 2021. Weighing 6.2 tons (~13,600 lb), JWST was almost half as heavy at liftoff as NASA’s iconic Hubble Space Telescope despite packing an unprecedented origami-like mirror with more than six times Hubble’s total collecting area. The combination of extreme mass reduction and extraordinary complexity required to launch such a large mirror so far from Earth with a rocket like Ariane 5 helps to partially explain why the Webb Telescope took so long (~18 years) and cost so much (~$9.7 billion) to design, develop, and build.
Nonetheless, launch it finally did. Ariane 5 did most of the work, sending the telescope on a trajectory that – with some help from its onboard thrusters – would guide it to the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point located some 1.5 million kilometers (~950,000 miles) from Earth. In perhaps the largest relief in the history of space-based observatories, the Webb Telescope’s immensely complex deployment process was then completed without a single major issue. 30 days after liftoff, the telescope – fully deployed – reached its operational orbit.
For the past four months, in comparison, almost all JWST work has focused on the less visible and far smaller processes of alignment and calibration. Each of JWST’s 18 main mirror segments has slowly but surely inched micrometer by micrometer into position while large swaths of the telescope slowly cooled to ambient temperatures – essential for maximum performance. Simultaneously, all of Webb’s primary instruments have achieved first light and entered the early phases of calibration and commissioning. Only after the instruments are painstakingly calibrated, the mirror is perfectly aligned, and crucial hardware is chilled to temperatures as low as -449°F (-267°C) can Webb begin to observe the universe and revolutionize large subsets of space science.
The first and most important step – mirror alignment – is now complete. The alignment process began in February 2022, six weeks after liftoff. First, images were captured with the unaligned mirror to help determine exactly what condition it was in. One by one, each of Webb’s 18 mirror segments were individually moved to determine which image each mirror was responsible for, which then allowed ground controllers to properly focus each mirror’s view of a target star. In a process known as “coarse phasing,” once those 18 points of light well-resolved and linked to a specific mirror segment, the segments were gradually steered on top of each other to produce a single image.
“Coarse” heavily undersells the almost unfathomable precision required to complete the step. To reach its full potential, each of the Webb Telescope’s mirror segments must be aligned to within 50 nanometers of each other. According to NASA, “if the Webb primary mirror were the size of the United States, each segment would be the size of Texas, and the team would need to line the height of those Texas-sized segments up with each other to an accuracy of about 1.5 inches.”
Fine phasing followed, involving an even more esoteric set of processes designed to focus the mirror as perfectly as possible. The resulting image was then tweaked to properly align it over the field of view of each of the Webb Telescope’s four main scientific instruments. Finally, some steps of the seven-step alignment process were redone or refined to fully optimize the mirror to the liking of its Earthbound creators and prospective users.
Ultimately, Webb Telescope alignment was extraordinarily successful, producing an image sharper and cleaner than even the “most optimistic predictions” made by its engineers. NASA says that the image is so detailed that it has effectively reached the physical resolution limit for a mirror the size of the Webb Telescope’s, meaning that it would have to violate the known laws of physics to resolve any more detail.
With mirror alignment complete, JWST has just one main hurdle left before science operations can begin: instrument commissioning. Commissioning is a catch-all phrase that covers a wide range of calibration, analysis, experiments, and optimization required to verify that JWST’s four main instruments are behaving as expected and accomplishing the work they were designed to do as accurately and reliably as possible.
At some point, the use of extraordinarily complex scientific instruments becomes more akin to an art form, and some degree of trust must be built up between scientists and their hopeful tools of the trade before they can confidently set chisel to marble and begin delving into the universe at unprecedented breadth and detail. If commissioning proceeds as smoothly as deployment and alignment, the JWST team could be ready to capture and share the telescope’s first actionable observations of the cosmos as early as July 2022.
Investor's Corner
Tesla opens the Q&A for its biggest earnings call yet
Tesla opens its Q3 earnings Q&A, and Cybercab, Robotaxi, Optimus and regulators loom over October 21.
Tesla has opened its shareholder question portal for the Q3 2026 earnings call, with the Say Q&A page already listing questions. Investors have until 4:00 p.m. EDT on October 20 to submit and vote on what management should answer.
The call is set for Wednesday, October 21. Tesla will post results after the market closes, with a live webcast at 4:30 p.m. CT, or 5:30 p.m. ET, through its investor relations site.
Say ranks questions by the number of shares behind the votes, which gives institutional holders extra weight over the retail crowd.
Ahead of Q2, retail investors asked why Robotaxi growth had stalled, when Cybercab would start customer rides, and where the Optimus Gen 3 ramp stood, while an institutional holder asked how Tesla and SpaceX would split Terafab duties. Cybercab has since answered one of those. Tesla said last week it has 300 plus Cybercabs serving Austin, up eightfold in 30 days, with Dallas named as the next city. The questions now are likely to move from when to how fast.
There is also a regulatory question hanging over the call. NHTSA has demanded sworn answers on how the pedal free Cybercab was certified against federal safety standards, with responses due October 30, nine days after the call. Whether an analyst raises it live is unknown, but it is the kind of exposure that tends to find its way into a Q&A.
The numbers will not be the main draw. Tesla already reported 486,532 deliveries and 13.7 GWh of storage for the quarter. Consensus sits around 43 to 45 cents per share on roughly $27.8 billion in revenue, according to Zacks, after a Q2 report that missed on EPS. Goldman Sachs, which holds a Neutral rating and a $360 target, argues the outlook for Robotaxi, FSD and Optimus will matter more to the stock than the quarter itself.
The call also lands six days after the rescheduled Roadster event, which Tesla will stream on X on Thursday, October 15, at 7:55 p.m. CT. If the Roadster shows up with a production date or a SpaceX thruster package, expect it to climb the voting list before the deadline.
Elon Musk
Ukraine says Starlink is cutting out its military drones as Poland calls out Elon Musk
Ukrainian officials allege SpaceX limited military Starlink speeds, disrupting drone missions; SpaceX has not commented.
Ukrainian officials are accusing SpaceX of placing a speed limit on the military version of Starlink that their forces use to fly drones, but SpaceX has not confirmed that any change was made. Presidential adviser Serhiy Beskrestnov said in a Telegram post on Wednesday that Starshield terminals have begun losing service when they move faster than about 100 miles per hour, according to a Reuters report. “Our defense forces did not receive a warning about this limitation, and this led to the disruption of several missions,” he wrote.
Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Reaction Corps told Reuters that connections dropped for 10 to 20 seconds at just 68 to 75 mph, which made the drones harder to control. Volunteer Serhiy Sternenko, citing military reports, said the dropouts are now starting at 37 to 43 mph. These accounts come from Ukrainian officials and military sources and have not been independently verified. Regular civilian terminals were reportedly not affected, according to EUalive.
.@POTUS: We told Zelensky, ‘You can do whatever you want to Russia, but don’t hit the refineries because that’s a world problem.’ And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel. He better damn well stop. https://t.co/CdRlMcPlKr
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 10, 2026
SpaceX has not publicly commented or explained what, if anything, changed. Beskrestnov and other Ukrainian officials believe the issue is intentional and point to the timing. Washington has been pressing Kyiv to stop long range strikes on Russian oil refineries after President Trump called for an “energy ceasefire,” and Musk posted on Saturday that “Zelensky has gone too far.” EUalive noted that neither Ukrainian nor Polish officials have presented evidence that the limit was ordered by Washington or by SpaceX, so the link to politics remains an allegation. Other explanations, such as a technical or policy change affecting fast moving terminals, have not been ruled out.
Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, responded on X by quote tweeting a Kyiv Independent report and writing: “Hey, @elonmusk, big man, are you playing politics with your products again? As your European customers, we are watching you.” Poland is the largest funder of Ukraine’s Starlink service, having supplied more than 29,000 terminals and covering operating costs Sikorski has put at roughly $50 million a year. The wording echoes their 2025 clash, when Musk told Sikorski to “be quiet, small man.” At the time of writing, neither Musk nor SpaceX had responded to the claims.
Hey, @elonmusk, big man, are you playing politics with your products again?
As your European customers, we are watching you.— Radosław Sikorski 🇵🇱🇪🇺 (@sikorskiradek) October 14, 2026
The dispute sits on top of a long history. Musk confirmed in February 2022 that Starlink was active in Ukraine after a request from a Ukrainian minister. That October, SpaceX asked the Pentagon to share the bill and Musk said the cost was approaching $20 million a month, before he reversed course and said SpaceX would keep paying. In December 2024 the Pentagon moved some of those terminals onto the Starshield service, the government version now at the center of the complaints.
SpaceX has also changed how its network treats certain terminals in Ukraine before, and that time it was with Kyiv’s cooperation. In February, Ukrainian officials confirmed that terminals believed to be used by Russian troops were disabled after coordination with SpaceX, a step that Ukrainian commanders later said hurt Russian assaults. Whether anything similar is behind the latest reports is unclear, which is why Kyiv is asking for answers.
Ukraine is already looking at backups. Defense tech company Stetman is developing its own satellite system, UASAT-NANO, and officials in Europe have discussed alternatives to Starlink since early 2025, though none match its scale yet.
Elon Musk
FAA kicks off review of SpaceX’s bid to fly Starship nearly every day
FAA is reviewing SpaceX’s plan for 456 Starship launches a year, up from 25 today.
The FAA said Tuesday that it will prepare an environmental impact statement on SpaceX’s proposal to run as many as 456 Starship launches and 912 landings a year from Starbase, Texas. SpaceX is currently authorized for 25 launches and 50 landings annually, which makes the request roughly 18 times the existing ceiling. The notice of intent is set to publish in the Federal Register on Wednesday.
The plan comes in two phases. Phase 1 would allow up to 100 launches and 200 landings a year, on any day and at any hour. Phase 2, which the FAA says could arrive within several years, would raise the limit to the full 456 launches, still at any hour but only on weekdays. The agency noted that 912 landings is the upper limit for the Texas facility no matter where a given mission begins, and that Starship and Super Heavy could come down at the launch site or in the Gulf and open ocean.
A draft statement will be released for public comment at a later date, and the FAA has not said when. According to the Federal Registar, written comments are due November 30 on regulations.gov under docket FAA-2026-12808, with in person scoping meetings on November 17 in Brownsville and November 19 in Port Isabel, plus a virtual session on November 18. The review will weigh air quality, wildlife, coastal resources, water, noise, and aviation, and the FAA said any increase beyond this proposal would need its own separate review.
The numbers look large next to what Starbase has actually done. Starship has flown three times from Texas this year, including Flight 14 on September 28, the first orbital flight, which deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites. Bloomberg reported that Starbase has never launched more than five times in a calendar year. The current cap of 25 comes from an FAA approval in May 2025. In February, the agency also approved up to 44 Starship launches a year from Launch Complex 39A in Florida, so Phase 1 in Texas alone would more than double that allowance.
Musk has said Starship could eventually fly more than once per hour within less than a decade, per Bloomberg. The nearer term target is Flight 15. Musk said on October 10 that it is hopefully four to six weeks away and will try to catch the ship with the tower, as Teslarati covered. That flight still runs under the existing 25 launch limit, and so would every Starbase launch for as long as the new review takes.
As of mid morning Pacific time on Tuesday, SpaceX had not posted about the filing on its own account.
Tesla opens the Q&A for its biggest earnings call yet
Ukraine says Starlink is cutting out its military drones as Poland calls out Elon Musk
FAA kicks off review of SpaceX’s bid to fly Starship nearly every day
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
SpaceX reveals how its 1 Million AI satellite network will work and prevent space collisions
