Often presented as the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be one of the major space observatories of the next decade. This passively cooled 6.5-meter telescope will include a suite of 4 instruments providing imaging and spectroscopic capabilities from 0.6 to 27 microns. It is scheduled for launch in 2018 and is the result of the collaboration between the American (NASA), European (ESA) and Canadian (CSA) space agencies. In this seminar, I will first give an overview of the JWST mission and of its latest status. I will then focus on its 4 instruments (NIRCam, NIRSpec, NIRISS and MIRI) and their capabilities.
ESA