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Chad Sanders, a computerized numerical control (CNC) machinist for AXSYS Technologies in Cullman, Ala., monitors machining operations on a mirror segment for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. AXSYS, a subcontractor for Ball Aerospace of Boulder, Colo., delivered the last of 18 mirror segments, called "blanks," in January. They will next undergo grinding and polishing operations at Tinsley Laboratories in Richmond, Calif. The James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's next Great Observatory, is scheduled to launch to orbit in 2013 to study the oldest stars and galaxies formed in the universe. The program is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD.
