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.

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.