Status of the James Webb Space Telescope Observatory

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the largest cryogenic, space telescope ever built, and will address a broad range of scientific goals from first light in the universe and re-ionization, to characterization of the atmospheres of extrasolar planets. Recently, significant progress has been made in the construction of the observatory with the completion of all 21 flight mirrors that comprise the telescope’’s optical chain, and the start of flight instrument deliveries to the Goddard Space Flight Center. In this paper we discuss the design of the observatory, and focus on the recent milestone achievements in each of the major observatory sub-systems.