Montreal Space Symposium

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a flagship observatory whose launch is now scheduled to the spring of 2021. The unprecedented light gathering power of JWST, with its 6.5-meter foldable primary mirror, will enable the study of extremely faint objects such as first-light galaxies and transiting exoplanet atmospheres. Its four science instruments are designed to observe in the infrared spectrum from 0.7 to 28 microns in about 17 different imaging and spectroscopic observing modes. Canada, through the Canadian Space Agency, is responsible of the Fine Guidance Sensing (FGS - the guider) and its piggy-backed science instrument, the Near-Infrared imager and slitless spectrosgraph (NIRISS). I will give an overview of the observatory and give a project status.