A mirror on the James Webb Space Telescope was struck by a micrometeoroid last month but is expected to continue to function normally, NASA said Thursday.

"After initial assessments, the team found the telescope is still performing at a level that exceeds all mission requirements despite a marginally detectable effect in the data," the US space agency said.

"Webb's beginning-of-life performance is still well above expectations, and the observatory is fully capable of performing the science it was designed to achieve," it added.

One of the space observatory's primary mirror segments suffered an impact from a micrometeoroid, which tend to be smaller than a grain of sand, between May 23 and 25.

In the lead-up to the release of Webb's first full-color images and spectroscopic data on July 12, the Webb team is now in the last phase of commissioning the science instruments. The first two instrument modes, NIRCam imaging and NIRISS imaging, have been declared ready for science; watch the "Where is Webb" page as the team works their way through the other 15 instrument modes.

After commissioning is finished, the fun—and discoveries—will start: implementing the hundreds of peer-reviewed science programs that have been selected for Webb's first year. The area on the sky that Webb can see at any given time is called the field of regard. Deciding which observations to make on which day is a complicated process designed to optimize observational efficiency and manage the observatory's resources. We asked Christine Chen, science policies group lead at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), to tell us how Webb's schedule comes together.

"Webb will soon transition from commissioning to regular operations when Webb's time will be devoted to scientific observations," said Christine Chen, Webb science policies group lead, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland.

NASA is officially joining the hunt for UFOs.

The space agency on Thursday announced a new study that will recruit leading scientists to examine unidentified aerial phenomena—a subject that has long fascinated the public and recently gained high-level attention from Congress.

The project will begin early this fall and last around nine months, focusing on identifying available data, how to gather more data in future, and how NASA can analyze the findings to try to move the needle on scientific understanding.

On November 15th, 2020, NASA and SpaceX made history when a crewed spacecraft—the Crew Dragon Resilience—lifted off from American soil and delivered four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). This mission (designated Crew-1) was a culminating achievement for NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) and effectively restored domestic launch capability to the U.S. for the first time since the Space Shuttle's retirement in 2011. As of April, SpaceX's launch vehicles and spacecraft were used to mount the first all-private Axiom Mission-1 and the fourth flight of the CCP (Crew-4).

Building on this success, NASA recently filed a notice of intent (NOI) to purchase five additional Crew Dragon spacecraft. This decision is based in large part on the delays suffered by Boeing—NASA's other CCP commercial partner—and the development of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft.