James Webb Space Telescope
Despite budget problems, NASA and ESA continue with plans for a 6.5-meter space telescope designed to study the infant universe.
The public tends to see the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as a successor to the current Hubble Space Telescope. And that's only natural — after all, JWST was originally called the Next Generation Space Telescope. But JWST actually has more in common with the current Spitzer Space Telescope. Spitzer observes the universe in the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, just as JWST will. The Webb Telescope will cover the wavelength region from 0.6 to 28 micrometers, or from the red end of the visible spectrum well out into the infrared. And it will be optimized for observations in the 1- to 5-micrometer range.