James Webb Space Telescope Almost Ready To Go
It’s been a big week for the much-delayed James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as testing of the observatory was completed and operations to ship the spacecraft to the Kourou launchpad began.
It has been a long time coming – the best part of 25 years since development started – but it looks very much the JWST will finally head to space this year.
A poster child for cost overruns, the JWST is a joint NASA, ESA and CSA project and will make observations in a lower frequency range than the veteran Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Scientists expect the observatory to be able peer at objects too distant for the HST from its L2 location.
The spacecraft is an impressive beast: “100 times more powerful than Hubble,” according to NASA. Its primary mirror consists of 18 hexagonal shaped segments, each 1.32m in diameter. Six actuators are attached to the back of each segment for focusing (with an extra one at the centre of the primary mirror segments for adjusting the curvature) and each mirror is aligned to 1/10,000th the thickness of a human hair.
The mirror must also be kept very cold – down to -220°C – and use a sunshield to shade the mirrors and instruments from the Sun as well as the heat coming off the spacecraft’s bus itself.
It’s all added to up to a hellishly complicated spacecraft that must unfurl itself in space while controllers monitor things from Earth.
Preparations for shipping are expected to be completed in September and once the JWST arrives at the spaceport, the processing for launch will begin in earnest. The spacecraft will be checked for damage incurred in transit, fuelled and mated to its Ariane 5 launch vehicle before rolling out to the launch pad in late November or early December, two days before launch.
Once off the pad, scientists face a nerve-wracking 26-minutes as the telescope rides the Ariane 5 to space, followed by a six-month commissioning period. The sunshield will deploy soon after launch and, during the month it will take the observatory to reach its intended orbital location, the instruments will be powered up, the telescope cooled and the mirrors unfolded.
Assuming the launch goes well. NASA’s GAO noted [PDF] “launch vehicle anomalies” back in May. The Ariane 5 has an enviable track record for reliability – its last total failure occurred in 2002, although a repeat of 2018’s whoopsie, where satellites were placed in the wrong orbit, would be less than ideal for the JWST. A hiatus of nearly a year occurred between the last Ariane 5 launch, in July, and its predecessor, in August 2020.
Still, the completion of testing and kicking off of the shipment process is a moment to savour for scientists, many of whom have dedicated substantial chunks of careers to the observatory.
See more here: theregister.com
Header image: CNET
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slandermen
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Just a random thing.
‘Lost ancient capital city’ is discovered in France: Celtic treasure including extravagant jewellery, weapons and chariot parts are found at 3,000-year-old Bronze Age hillfort
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9942967/Archaeology-Bronze-Age-hillfort-filled-treasure-unearthed-France-lost-capital-city.html
I guess that explains why I have some sort of innate Celtic intuition or something, connection, I mean…I AM Frankish. Though not Frankist. It’s a pity my surname isn’t understood by either Germans or French though.. I still don’t know what it means.
Here’s a fun song that kinda reminds me of the previous time I went to go buy beer.
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T. C. Clark
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More waiting….and waiting…it better produce something spectacular. Hubble has been very spectacular. Astronomy seems to be in a bit of a golden age now with LIGO and Hubble still producing images….and the black hole image produced by the radio telescopes.
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G2GRICH888
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G2GRICH888
James Webb Space Telescope Almost Ready To Go | Principia Scientific Intl.
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G2GBET555
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G2GBET555
James Webb Space Telescope Almost Ready To Go | Principia Scientific Intl.
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คาสิโนà¸à¸à¸™à¹„ลน์
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คาสิโนà¸à¸à¸™à¹„ลน์
James Webb Space Telescope Almost Ready To Go | Principia Scientific Intl.
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