Press Play or drag the progress slider to replay the James Webb Space Telescope's real December 2021 to January 2022 deployment - the tower extending, the five-layer sunshield unfolding, and the primary mirror's two wings folding out and locking into place.
Published figures (NASA/ESA/STScI, cross-checked 2026-08-12): JWST launched 2021-12-25 on an Ariane 5 rocket, then spent about two weeks unfolding - the Deployable Tower Assembly on 2021-12-29, the five-layer sunshield fully tensioned to about 70x47 ft (21x14 m) by 2022-01-04, and the primary mirror's final wing locking on 2022-01-08 at about 18:17 UTC. NASA's Mike Menzel: the observatory has 50 major deployments and 178 release mechanisms, and every one had to work.
Drag the progress slider (or press Play) to watch the tower, sunshield, and mirror wings unfold in the real order they happened, and press "Show dimensions" once the shield is tensioned to compare its real size beside it.
JWST Deployment Sequence 3D Explorer
Scrub the progress slider to replay the James Webb Space Telescope's real deployment: launched folded inside an Ariane 5 rocket on 25 December 2021, then unfolding over about two weeks into the largest space telescope ever built - a sequence NASA engineers call one of the most complex deployments ever attempted, with 50 major deployments and 178 release mechanisms that all had to work.
Drag to orbit the view, scroll or pinch to zoom, and press Play or Pause to animate the timeline. Drag the progress slider to jump straight to any of the 10 real milestones, click the spacecraft body, the tower, a mirror segment, or a sunshield layer to refresh the facts panel, and press "Show dimensions" once the sunshield is tensioned to compare its real published size directly.
The facts panel lists the real published dates: the 29-minute automatic solar-array deployment right after launch, the pallet structures and Deployable Tower Assembly unfolding on 28 and 29 December, the sunshield's five membrane layers releasing their covers and unfurling into a diamond shape between 30 and 31 December, the sunshield reaching full tension on 4 January 2022, the secondary mirror deploying on its tripod struts on 5 January, and the primary mirror's two wings - each carrying 3 of its 18 gold-coated hexagonal segments, with the other 12 fixed on the center section - locking into place by 8 January 2022 at about 18:17 UTC.
- The real December 2021 to January 2022 deployment order, from launch through the final mirror-wing lock
- Play or Pause animates the full sequence; the progress slider jumps to any of the 10 milestones directly
- The tower extends, the five-layer sunshield unfolds to its true diamond shape, and the mirror's two wings fold out from their launch position
- A dimension-reference overlay for the sunshield's real published deployed size, about 70x47 ft (21x14 m)
- Click the spacecraft, tower, a mirror segment, or a sunshield layer to jump the facts panel to that milestone's real date and figures
- Runs fully in the browser with the vendored three.js engine - no account, no upload
Students and teachers use it to see why JWST could not simply launch already-assembled - its 6.5 m primary mirror and 21x14 m sunshield are both far larger than any rocket fairing, so nearly every major structure had to fold for launch and unfold in space. Readers curious about the January 2022 news coverage scrub straight to the final milestone to see the exact moment engineers called the deployment complete.
| Quantity | Published value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Launch | 2021-12-25, about 12:20 UTC, Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana | NASA/ESA Webb mission |
| Solar array deployment | Automatic, about 29 minutes after launch | NASA Science - Webb deployment |
| Sunshield deployed size | About 70x47 ft (about 21x14 m), five layers, fully tensioned 2022-01-04 | NASA Science; ESA Webb |
| Primary mirror | 6.5 m diameter, 18 hexagonal beryllium segments, 1.32 m each, about 20 kg each | NASA Science - Webb's Mirrors |
| Mirror gold coating | About 100 nanometers (1,000 angstroms) thick; about 48.25 grams of gold total | NASA Science - Webb's Mirrors |
| Secondary mirror | 0.74 m diameter | ESA/Webb - Mirrors |
| Deployment complete | 2022-01-08, about 18:17 UTC - final (starboard) primary-mirror wing locked | NASA/Northrop Grumman deployment coverage |
| Deployment complexity | 50 major deployments; 178 release mechanisms | NASA Goddard - Mike Menzel, Webb Mission Systems Engineer |
Everything renders on your device with WebGL. The 3D engine loads once (about 0.7 MB) and is cached; no scene data is sent to a server.
The scene is an educational approximation of the real December 2021 to January 2022 deployment, not a mechanical simulation. The tower, sunshield, and mirror-wing motions are simplified scale-and-rotate animations that show the order and shape of each real step, not the true multi-day motor speeds or exact hinge kinematics of the real hardware - the table above holds the real published dates, times, and figures.
For a step-by-step walkthrough, read the JWST Deployment Sequence how-to guide. The Space 3D collection also includes a JWST L2 Halo Orbit explorer for what happens after deployment, once Webb settles into its science orbit around the Sun-Earth L2 point.
Related tools:
- Solar System 3D Explorer - Solar System 3D Explorer - All eight planets orbit the sun live on screen - drag to orbit the view,
- Gravitational Microlensing 3D Visualizer - 3D visualizer showing how gravity magnifies and bends light to detect exoplanets via gravitational
- Black Hole 3D Visualizer - Black Hole 3D Visualizer - Tens of thousands of glowing particles orbit the black event-horizon
- Galaxy 3D Simulator - Galaxy 3D Simulator - Up to 100,000 points form the spiral arms on desktop (30,000 on phones so
- Io Volcanoes 3D Explorer
- Earth 3D Globe - Live Day & Night Map - Earth 3D Globe - Live Day & Night Map - See at a glance where on Earth it is day and where it is
- Moon Phases 3D Explorer - Moon Phases 3D Explorer - Scrub through a synodic month and watch the Sun-Earth-Moon geometry set
- Saturn Rings 3D Explorer - Saturn Rings 3D Explorer - Explore Saturn's main C, B, and A rings and the Cassini Division in 3D
- Kepler Orbits 3D Explorer - Kepler Orbits 3D Explorer - Explore Kepler's three laws with an elliptical orbit in 3D -
- Moon Calendar 3D Explorer - Moon Calendar 3D Explorer - Scrub a synodic month on a calendar-style Moon view with earthshine on
- ISS Orbit Tracker 3D Explorer - ISS Orbit Tracker 3D Explorer - Watch a procedural ISS low-Earth orbit around Earth with a yellow
- JWST L2 Halo Orbit 3D Explorer - JWST L2 Halo Orbit 3D Explorer - Watch Webb loop around Sun-Earth L2 on a procedural halo path with
Tags: #space-3d
Related guides:
- Make a ZIP File Online - What the Tool Does and When ZIP Saves Space - Make a ZIP file online: when ZIP actually saves space, when it does not, and how to send files or a
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the JWST Deployment Sequence 3D Explorer show?
The real December 2021 to January 2022 James Webb Space Telescope deployment: the tower extending, the five-layer sunshield unfolding to its full diamond shape, and the primary mirror's two wings folding out and locking into place. Scrub the progress slider or press Play to move through the real timeline, and the panel lists the published dates and figures for each milestone.
Why did JWST need to fold up for launch at all?
JWST's 6.5 m primary mirror and its 21x14 m deployed sunshield are both far larger than the 4.57 m wide payload fairing of the Ariane 5 rocket that launched it. Engineers built the telescope to fold, origami-style, into the fairing, then unfold once in space - a sequence with 50 major deployments and 178 release mechanisms that all had to work.
How long did the real deployment take?
JWST launched on 25 December 2021. The sunshield reached full tension on 4 January 2022, and the primary mirror's final wing locked into place on 8 January 2022 at about 18:17 UTC - a deployment sequence spanning about two weeks.
How is the primary mirror split into wings?
The primary mirror has 18 hexagonal, gold-coated beryllium segments, 1.32 m across each. Twelve segments sit on the fixed center section; the other six are split into two folding wings of three segments each, which locked into place on 7 and 8 January 2022.
How big is the sunshield, and why "about the size of a tennis court"?
The five-layer sunshield reached its full deployed size of about 70x47 ft (about 21x14 m) on 4 January 2022 - NASA's own comparison for that footprint is "about the size of a tennis court". Press "Show dimensions" once the timeline passes that milestone to see a size-reference outline beside the shield.
Is this a mechanical simulation of the real hardware?
No. The tower, sunshield, and mirror-wing motions are simplified scale-and-rotate animations that show the order and shape of each real deployment step - not the true multi-day motor speeds or the exact hinge kinematics of the real hardware. The dates, times, and figures in the facts panel and the table on the main page are the real published NASA, ESA, and STScI values.