The Ariane 5 rocket will carry NASA's James Webb Space Telescope into the atmosphere in December of 2021. The image is from the ESA-M.Pedoussaut.
The official launch date for NASA's newest flagship observatory is now.
The telescope is expected to be launched at 7:20 a.m. on December 24. The Ariane 5 rocket has been packed up inside the nose cone for the trip.
NASA officials wrote in an update today that teams at the launch site successfully completed the encapsulation of the observatory inside the Ariane 5 rocket that will launch it to space. The Ariane 5 mission was delayed due to a data cable issue.
The final launch readiness review will be held on Tuesday. The Ariane 5 rocket will roll out to the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana on Wednesday if that is the case.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope launch is live.
Agency officials think that the next Hubble Space Telescope will be called the "Jimb", which means that it has a big mandate to fill. Hubble's topline science includes showing the universe is expanding, finding new moons, and helping to create 3-D maps of dark matter.
Scientists expect the telescope to push even further back after years of delays. The telescope will travel to an isolated spot about 1 million miles from Earth, known as a Lagrange point, which is a stable spot between two bodies.
The early universe will be the focus of the telescope, which is three times the size of the 1990s-era Hubble. More light and more detail will be gathered on the stars.
An artist's illustration of a telescope. The image is from the European Space Agency.
A last-minute release of a band that pushed the launch by a few more days is one of the many technical challenges that has been overcome by Webb.
The original scope called for a budget of $500 million, but technology advances and unforeseen difficulties contributed to the delays. The schedule was hurt by the Pandemic in 2020.
Hubble launched over-budget and later than expected. Hubble is famous for having to have a crew of astronauts repair a flawed mirror. NASA has said that the prime contractor for the project, Northrop Grumman, tested all systems thoroughly before the launch.
The space telescope is ready for launch. The image is from the Arianespace.
Reports indicate that the naming of the telescope has been criticized. The name is meant to honor the man who was NASA's second-ever administrator and led the agency from 1961 to 1968 while it was preparing for human landing missions. Critics of the administrator claim that he was involved in discrimination against gay and lesbian NASA employees, including the firing of CliffordNorton in 1963.
NASA is hoping the effort will be worth it with the launch of the new observatory. The agency said in a November post that the mission would explore every phase of the universe from the earliest observable universe to the solar system. "Webb will help humanity understand the origins of the universe and our place in it by revealing new and unexpected discoveries."
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