“I think this is going to have an impact on the same level as Hubble,” Ji said, noting the iconic images that telescope collected, capturing the public's imagination. The Webb is likely to have its earliest “wins” in the area of exoplanet observations, planets that orbit stars in galaxies far from our own, said Alex Ji, a near-field cosmologist and assistant professor at the University of Chicago.
The main contractor is Northrop Grumman Corp. If successful, the Webb's ascent will undoubtedly cheer thousands of scientists who have watched in despair as multiple miscues, soaring costs and slipped deadlines bedeviled the project, which Congress nearly scuttled 10 years ago due to the steep budget overruns. After assembly and arrival at L2, the Webb will have six months of mirror alignment, instrument calibration and other testing before it begins its mission. The telescope, operating at temperatures below -380 Fahrenheit (-229 C), will always point away from Earth, the sun and moon.įollowing those maneuvers, the spacecraft will then unfold 18 small, hexagonal mirrors that fit together down to the nanometer, together comprising the telescope's 6.5 meters (21.5 feet) mirror. After rolling out its solar array, the Webb must accomplish additional “unfoldings.” The craft will need to deploy a large scaffold structure to support a sunscreen that shields it from heat and light, followed by a five-layer Kapton sunscreen. The dark and cold of space are integral to Webb's infrared work. This reduces the amount of propellant needed for the craft to maintain its orbit. The spot is one of five such points where the gravity of the sun and Earth balance to allow a spacecraft to move along with them. The telescope's workstation is called the second Lagrange point, of L2, “behind” the Earth as viewed from the sun. Then about 12 hours later, the craft must initiate a course-correction rocket burn to fine-tune its trajectory toward its final destination.īoth must happen precisely on cue, long before Webb completes the 29-day trip to its post. Roughly 33 minutes after liftoff, Webb must deploy its solar array to begin generating power.
#James webb telescope launch date series#
Then the telescope must execute a daunting series of maneuvers, with the first 13 hours of flight including two critical tasks. First, the launch itself must be successful. The telescope also has multiple forms of spectrograph imaging to study the composition of stars and planets.īut before any of this research can happen, Webb must arrive on station. One Webb target is the Andromeda galaxy, the closest to our Milky Way, which reveals far more of its nature in the infrared spectrum than in visible light. The Webb's skillset will also include observation of planets-some possibly like Earth-that orbit stars in other galaxies. The Webb will also be able to peer more closely at objects first uncovered by Hubble, many of which are obscured by interstellar dust and gas that the newer telescope can pierce. New insights are expected from discoveries dating back 13.5 billion years, only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. The older telescope, which had to be repaired after launch because of a flaw in its mirror, has been repeatedly updated with new technology and could last another two decades.īut researchers say Webb, named for NASA's administrator during its heyday of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo rocket programs in the 1960s, is crucial to a deeper understanding of the early universe and how stars and galaxies formed. Hubble is still working, albeit from an orbit much closer to Earth (340 miles away), collecting data in the visible light spectrum. The Webb telescope will examine the infrared spectrum-thermal radiation humans can't see and which is often obscured to ground-based telescopes. 21 at a pre-launch briefing, calling it “one of the great engineering feats for the people of this planet.” The telescope is “a shining example of what we can accomplish when we dream big,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Dec. For science, the Webb telescope's ultimate promise is a greater understanding around two fundamental questions for humanity: Where did we come from and are we alone? But for NASA, it's also a huge risk given everything that might go wrong.
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