Shown being readied for a performance test is the heart of the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera, a 16-megapixel mosaic of light sensors. The mosaic is comprised of four separate chips mounted together with a black mask covering the gaps between the chips.

 Photographer: Kenneth W. Don, University of Arizona

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has powered up its instruments, including two crucial infrared cameras that were designed by married astronomers from the University of Arizona.

The space agency confirmed the last of the successful power-up procedures Monday, setting the stage for the first light to be let into the $10 billion telescope within the next week or so.

Webb was launched from a South American spaceport on Christmas Day, and then underwent a series of complicated maneuvers to deploy the solar panels that help power it, the thin shield that protects it from the sun and its 21.3-foot diameter mirror, which is actually made up of 18 separate segments that unfolded in space.

On Jan. 24, the spacecraft reached its final destination β€” an orbital point known as the 2nd Lagrange point, about 1 million miles away β€” where it will circle the sun on a track that will keep in line with Earth.

University of Arizona astronomy professor Marcia Rieke shows off a replica of the Near Infrared Camera she helped design for NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope during an interview at UA’s Steward Observatory in December.

NASA announced Webb’s arrival in orbit around the sun with a Twitter post that began: β€œHome, home on Lagrange!”

One of the last instruments to be switched on was the telescope’s primary camera β€” the Near Infrared Camera, or NIRCam β€” which was built by a team led by UA Regents professor of astronomy Marcia Rieke.

Her husband, George Rieke, also a regents professor of astronomy, is the science team lead and one of the designers for Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument, also known as MIRI.

The Riekes’ instruments will allow Webb to see farther than ever before, collecting data on the atmospheres of planets in other solar systems and light from some of the first objects formed after the Big Bang.

First, though, Webb’s operations team will spend several months carefully aligning the telescope’s mirror by pointing it at a nondescript star known as HD84406 and using NIRCam to bring it into perfect focus.

Since the mirror segments are not working in tandem yet, the alignment will start with 18 random, blurry points of light that will gradually become a sharp image of a single star.

NIRCam is being used for the process, because it picks up the most detail and is the most sensitive to misalignment.

Artist conception of the James Webb Space Telescope.

β€œThese first photos mean that we finally get starlight moving through the system and detected by NIRCam,” said Marcia Rieke in a written statement. β€œNIRCam has not been turned on since before launch; this will prove the launch didn’t introduce issues for how it can work.”

The UA’s outsized involvement in NASA’s next generation space telescope is expected to pay dividends to researchers at the university. The space agency has allotted 13% of Webb’s total observing time to UA researchers, the most of any astronomy center in the world.

NASA has not yet announced where it will point Webb, probably sometime this summer, for the first image that will be shared with the public.

But if everything goes according to plan, expect that first picture to be spectacular.

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Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@tucson.com or 573-4283. On Twitter: @RefriedBrean