14 hours ago James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: Northrop Grumman

Key science elements of the James Webb Space Telescope have been upgraded ahead of the observatory's launch in 2018.

The telescope, also known as JWST, is a joint project of NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency. It carries a 6.5 m-diameter telescope and four state-of-the-art science instruments optimised for infrared observations. Europe has led the development of two of the instruments.

As a general-purpose observatory, it will tackle a wide range of topics, including detecting the first galaxies in the Universe and following their evolution over cosmic time, witnessing the birth of new stars and their planetary systems, and studying planets in our Solar System and around other stars.

Installation of the four instruments in the telescope's Integrated Science Instrument Module, or ISIM, was completed last April. Since then, the module has undergone extensive testing to ensure it can withstand the stresses of launch and operation in space.

A critical part of this process saw the instruments complete cryogenic testing in a round-the-clock campaign running for 116 days last summer.

Following the campaign, several months were dedicated to replacing key components of some of the instruments already known to require additional work before the next stages.

Europe's 'NIRSpec', the near-infrared multi-object spectrograph, was one of the instruments upgraded. NIRSpec will split infrared light from distant stars and galaxies into its colour components a spectrum providing scientists with vital information on their chemical composition, age and distance.

The first generation of JWST's highly sensitive near-infrared detectors were found to suffer from a design flaw that resulted in a progressive degradation of their performance. New detectors have now been installed in all three near-infrared instruments.

"Excellent detectors are crucial to the outstanding instrument performance needed when you want to look at the extremely distant and faint early stars and galaxies that formed when our Universe was still young, and the new detectors secure this top priority of NIRSpec and JWST," says Pierre Ferruit, ESA's JWST project scientist.

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Improved vision for James Webb Space Telescope