The Ariane 5 rocket that will carry the James Webb Space Telescope to space will be parked at the Spaceport in French Guiana.
M.Pedoussaut is a member of the European Space Agency.
NASA is counting down to the launch of the most powerful space telescope in history, while the world of astronomy is bracing for a day that is sure to go down in history.
On December 25th, the James Webb Space Telescope will be launched from a European spaceport in French Guiana. The $10 billion observatory is larger and more sophisticated than the Hubble Space Telescope, and it has been in the works since the 1980's. You can watch the launch live.
Even though the Ariane 5 rocket is highly reliable, there is always the fear of a launch accident or explosion that would destroy its cargo in an instant.
Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science told NPR that the first few minutes of the launch will be the most worrisome as there is nothing to be done if something goes wrong.
A revolutionary technology.
The telescope is designed to capture the light from distant galaxies that have traveled through space for the entire history of the universe.
"We are expecting to see the light from the first galaxies that formed 200 million years after the Big bang," NASA administrator Bill Nelson said in a pre-launch briefing. It will deliver world-class science. It's a revolutionary technology that will study the entire history of the universe.
He said that the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to study the atmospheres of planets beyond our solar system to see if they are suitable for life.
Nelson said that it will give them a better understanding of their place in the universe.
The telescope is named after a former NASA administrator who led the agency in the 1960s, and it is three stories tall with a mirror that is 21 feet across. The instrument had to be folded up to fit into the rocket and will need to unfold out in space.
The development of its technology was marked by delays and cost overruns, and some lawmakers tried to kill it in 2011.
Nelson noted that there have been some setbacks along the way. The project would be a risky endeavor. When you want a big reward, you have to take a big risk.
Two weeks of terror after launch.
After reaching space, the telescope needs to be set up and positioned about a million miles away from Earth.
After launch, the spacecraft needs to deploy its solar panel and antenna for communication. The small rocket engines will be used to make a course correction maneuver.
In the first two weeks after launch, controllers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore will send orders to the telescope, taking it through a series of steps that will unfurl its sun shield, and unfold the "wings" of the large mirror.
Engineers have focused on thinking about potential problems that might crop up when the telescope's key components are deployed, because of the unfurling of the thin, flexible sun shield.
Mike Menzel, NASA's lead mission systems engineer, said in a briefing for reporters that the sun shield has some risk.
The telescope will start to get cold if everything goes well. It's crucial that the telescope's heat isn't interfering with the light it's trying to capture from distant objects.
The mirror's 18 hexagonal segments will need to be precisely aligned using tiny motors that can move each segment, and the telescope will need to undergo various checkouts. The first images from the telescope should be out six months after launch.
Astronomers who have submitted research proposals have been given time to use the telescope. The American Museum of Natural History in New York City has an astronomer named Jackie Faherty.
She feels anxious and hopeful that everything will go well because of her own investment in the telescope, but she also wants it to succeed because of its significance for science and humanity more broadly.
"My career is anchored in this, but then I'm just a human, and I'm like 'WOW, what are we about to do?'" says Faherty. We're going to launch this engineering feat into the universe.
