Testing of an Advanced Mirror System Demonstrator for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, is currently under way at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Two mirror technology candidates will undergo a battery of stringent optical performance tests under cryogenic conditions during the spring and summer months. One technology will ultimately be chosen as the one to be pursued for the primary mirror of the Webb telescope.

The mirror now undergoing testing was built by Eastman Kodak Company, Commercial & Government Systems, Rochester, N.Y. The other candidate, built by Ball Aerospace, Boulder, Colo., began testing in June 2003.