Powerful Webb Space Telescope Featuring Canadian Instruments Set for Dec. 18 Launch

In this 2017 photo, technicians lift the mirror assembly of the James Webb Space Telescope using a crane inside a clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. NASA via AP/Desiree Stover

MONTREAL—In just over a month, the world’s largest, most advanced telescope will be launched into orbit from a spaceport in South America, and among those eagerly watching will be Montreal physics professor Rene Doyon.

The James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to blast off Dec. 18 aboard the Ariane 5 rocket from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana. The orbiting infrared observatory, a collaboration between NASA and the European and Canadian space agencies, will be 100 times more powerful than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990.