NASA's delayed and over-budget James Webb Space Telescope has finally been built ahead of 2021 launch

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Construction of NASA's next flagship telescope, the beleaguered James Webb spacecraft, has finally been completed.  

The much-maligned mission was intended to replace the long-serving Hubble telescope but has been plagued with issues and delays.  

Named after the second administrator of NASA, the replacement flagship telescope has also run $800 million over its enormous $8 billion budget. 

It is designed to study the origins of the universe's first stars and their dim light but torn sunshields and loose bolts have previously been blamed for the setbacks.  

It was first earmarked for an October 2018 launch and is now scheduled for its virgin trip in March 2021. 

Jim Brindenstine, NASA Administrator, said in a tweet: 'or the 1st time ever, the spacecraft and telescope have been joined together as one observatory. 

'After further integration, @NASAWebb will undergo tests before it is shipped for launch.'

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The much-maligned James Webb telescope (pictured) was intended to replace the long-serving Hubble telescope but has been plagued with issues and delays

Named after the second administrator of NASA, the replacement flagship telescope (pictured) has also run $800 million over its enormous $8 billion budget.

It is hoped the James Webb telescope will be able to stare at the atmosphere of distant exoplanets which continue to be discovered. 

NASA announced its engineers successfully connected the two separate halves of the telescope together for the first time at Northrop Grumman's facilities in Redondo Beach, California. 

Once it reaches space, NASA's most powerful and complex space telescope will explore the cosmos using infrared light, from planets and moons within our solar system to the most ancient and distant galaxies.

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a joint venture between NASA, ESA and Canadian agency CSA. 

The giant jigsaw puzzle of assembly saw engineers lift the Webb telescope — complete with mirrors and delicate instruments — above the sunshield and spacecraft. 

A crane did the heavy lifting while a small army of staff scuttled around ensuring nothing was damaged and the two halves were placed and joined correctly.  

Mechanical connection will now be followed by the intricate process of electrical connection between the two sections.  

'The assembly of the telescope and its scientific instruments, sunshield and the spacecraft into one observatory represents an incredible achievement by the entire Webb team,' said Bill Ochs, Webb project manager for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. 

'This milestone symbolises the efforts of thousands of dedicated individuals for over more than 20 years across NASA, the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, Northrop Grumman, and the rest of our industrial and academic partners.'

James Webb is set to replace Hubble as the flagship telescope when it launches in 2021 and will lead space studies for decades, it is hoped

Jim Brindenstine, NASA Administrator, said in a tweet: 'or the 1st time ever, the spacecraft and telescope have been joined together as one observatory. After further integration, @NASAWebb will undergo tests before it is shipped for launch.'

JWST(pictured)  is a joint venture between NASA, ESA and Canadian agency CSA. The giant jigsaw puzzle of assembly saw engineers lift the Webb telescope — complete with mirrors and delicate instruments — above the sunshield and spacecraft.

Once it reaches space, NASA's most powerful and complex space telescope will explore the cosmos using infrared light, from planets and moons within our solar system to the most ancient and distant galaxies

The James Webb Telescope: NASA's $10 billion telescope is designed to detect light from the earliest stars and galaxies

The James Webb telescope has been described as a 'time machine' that could help unravel the secrets of our universe.

The telescope will be used to look back to the first galaxies born in the early universe more than 13.5 billion years ago, and observe the sources of stars, exoplanets, and even the moons and planets of our solar system.

The vast telescope, which has already cost more than $7 billion (£5 billion), is considered a successor to the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope

The James Webb Telescope and most of its instruments have an operating temperature of roughly 40 Kelvin – about minus 387 Fahrenheit (minus 233 Celsius).

It is the world's biggest and most powerful orbital space telescope, capable of peering back 100-200 million years after the Big Bang.

The orbiting infrared observatory is designed to be about 100 times more powerful than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA likes to think of James Webb as a successor to Hubble rather than a replacement, as the two will work in tandem for a while. 

The Hubble telescope was launched on April 24, 1990, via the space shuttle Discovery from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

It circles the Earth at a speed of about 17,000mph (27,300kph) in low Earth orbit at about 340 miles in altitude. 

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The Earth, moon and the Sun all produce vast amounts of infrared radiation and the golden sunshield is crucial in protecting them and keeping them cool

Webb's incredible sunshield, made of hexagonal gold panels, is a currently folded up neatly on the craft. 

It will soon be unfurled and fully tested to ensure it will be able to adequately protect the instruments from the infrared radiation in space. 

The Earth, moon and the Sun all produce vast amounts of infrared radiation and the shield is crucial in protecting them and keeping them cool. 

America's space agency is keen to get James Webb launched soon, but is already looking to the future and a life beyond JWST. 

Last year it turned to a team of expert astronomers to choose its eventual successor which will be built and sent into space in the 2030s. 

Four vastly different designs have been put forward which are designed to look for alien life, distant Earth-like worlds, black holes and the birth of new galaxies and high-energy gas disks.  

All four of the proposed missions look vastly different and the momentous decision will likely sculpt NASA's research for decades to come. 

Webb's incredible sunshield, made of hexagonal gold panels, is a currently folded up neatly on the craft (pictured). It will soon be unfurled and fully tested to ensure it will be able to adequately protect the instruments from the infrared radiation in space 

America's space agency is keen to get James Webb launched soon, but is already looking to the future and a life beyond JWST

Four vastly different designs have been put forward which are designed to look for alien life, distant Earth-like worlds, black holes and the birth of new galaxies and high-energy gas disks 

LUVOIR will continue a mission similar to that which has been covered over the last two decades by Hubble and will study the first stars of the universe to find signs of life and the creation of worlds.  

It is nearly 50 foot (15 metres) wide and has 40 times the light-collecting power of Hubble thanks to 120 different segments working in harmony to provide extremely high resolution data.

Each individual section is powered by pistons which enables it to erect itself while also folding like a 25 tonne piece of origami. 

HabEx will specialise exclusively on the latter goal of LUVOIR, looking solely for signs of habitable planets. It will embark on its journey with a companion spacecraft designed to block interfering glare from a nearby star. 

This football-field sized starshield will allow HabEx to obtain detailed imagery of exoplanets. 

Lynx is designed to succeed Chandra in analysing X-ray emissions from around the universe that have been spewed out by black holes. 

Pursuing this avenue may allow scientists to piece together the mysteries of how galaxies and star systems form.

Origins takes an approach unlike any of the other three and is designed to study a specific band of infrared radiation produced by cold gases and chilled pockets of space dust that eventually congregate to form planets and stars. 

It will obtain this cold data by being constantly chilled to within four degrees of absolute zero (-273.15°C) - the temperature at which all movement stops, even that of atoms. 

Nasa has produced designs of the four concepts and has said the winner will likely be positioned at L2 - an astronomical position a million miles beyond Earth and in the opposite direction to the sun. 

WHAT IS A LANGRANGE POINT?

A Lagrange point is a spot in space where the combined gravitational forces of two large bodies are equivalent to the centrifugal force of another body. 

The way the forces interact creates a net directional force of zero and allows an object to stay stationary in space.  

These points are named after Joseph-Louis Lagrange, an 18th-century mathematician who wrote about them in 1772. 

major astronomical bodies have five points - labelled L1, L2, L3 L4 and L5. 

L1, L2 and L3 are all unstable as they rely entirely on a fragile equilibrium. 

L4 and  L5 are far more stable.  

L1 - Between the two objects. This location between the sun and the Earth is currently occupied by SOHO - Solar and Heliospheric Observatory and the Deep Space Climate Observatory.

L2 - The second spot is a million miles beyond Earth and in the opposite direction to the sun. This is currently occupied by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and will be the target area for the upcoming James Web telescope. 

L3 -  This spot lies behind the sun and away from Earth. This spot remains, as of yet, unoccupied. 

L4 and L5 - They lie along Earth's orbit at 60 degrees ahead of and behind Earth. 

Nasa has created the four concepts and has said they will likely be positioned at L2 - an astronomical position a million miles beyond Earth and in the opposite direction to the sun

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