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In this presentation, physicist Erik Frerking will present some of the current missions that NASA and the ESA (European Space Agency) are engaged in to increase our understanding of the universe. In particular, he will talk about the James Webb telescope, what it sees, and how it got to its orbit at LaGrange point 2. Inherent in these missions are many more challenges such as collecting and storing the huge amounts of data that are produced daily. Erik also will talk about the Gaia mission, the Vera Ruben telescope, Landsat, and mention some of the other missions that are under way. Erik Frerking received a master's degree in physics in 1965 from U.C. Davis and shortly thereafter went to work at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (now Lawrence Livermore National Lab). LLNL is administered by the University of California, and operated by the federal department of energy. He spent his entire career there, working at diagnosing the behaviors of nuclear explosives.