If it does launch as currently scheduled in 2021, it will be 14 years late. When finally in position, though - orbiting the Sun 1.5 million km from Earth - Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope promises an astronomical revolution.
The US space agency boasts that it will literally "look back in time to see the very first galaxies that formed in the early Universe".
As if those claims were not bold enough, scientists have now surmised that the eventual successor to the world famous and beloved Hubble Space Telescope may - thanks to its 6.5m golden mirror and exquisitely sensitive cameras - have a another extraordinary talent.
The JWST, as it is called, may be able to look for signs of alien life - detecting whether atmospheres of planets orbiting nearby stars are being modified by that life.
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