Exploring strange new worlds. Understanding the origins of the universe. Searching for life in the galaxy. These are not the plot of a new science fiction movie, but the mission objectives of the James Webb Space Telescope, the long-awaited successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.

On Christmas, NASA launched the Webb from French Guiana in partnership with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. Now the telescope is on its way to a point nearly a million miles away from the Earth.

On its journey, the telescope has to complete a difficult mechanical maneuver: assembling itself. The telescope is so large it needed to launch folded up inside a rocket. Over the course of several weeks, it needs to unfurl its various components, from its sunshield to its mirrors. According to NASA, more than 300 potential technical problems, or “single point failures,” could potentially doom the mission.

But when it fully deploys in space, the Webb will usher in a new age of astronomy, scientists say, and show humanity things it has never seen before.

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