The biggest and most expensive space-based observatory ever built was going to be used to study the sun on Saturday. The James Webb Space Telescope lifted off from a spaceport near the Equator in French Guiana on Saturday morning, embarking on a million-mile trip to the morning of.
Gregory Robinson, the program director of the telescope, said at the news conference that the telescope would be handed back to the world.
The NASA administrator who led the space agency through the early years of the Apollo program is the inspiration for the telescope. Its primary light gathering mirror is three times bigger than Hubble and seven times more sensitive.
The earliest, most distant stars and galaxies, which appeared about 13 billion years ago, are the focus of the mission by the Webb.
Astronomers watching the launch from all over the world were overjoyed.
The University of California, Santa Cruz's Garth Illingworth said, "What an incredible Christmas present."
In an email exchange with other astrophotographers, Tod Lauer of the National Science Foundation's NOIRLab reported his feeling about the launch, saying that he was enjoying the most sacred of all space words, "Nominal!"
Alan Dressler, an astronomer at the Carnegie Observatory and one of the founding members of the Webb telescope project, replied, "Hallelujah!"
A Yale cosmologist, who is from India, described herself as utterly overjoyed.
A small group of scientists and NASA officials erupted in screams of joy and applauded during the launch at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
The flight operations team in another part of the institute watched as the solar array and communications antenna were deployed. The deployment will be commanded by 100 mission personnel who will work between 12 and 24 hours a day.
The institute's director said they have real work to do. The teams have been practicing for the last two years.
The telescope will be able to see the universe in colors no human eye has ever seen. The visible light from the earliest, most distant galaxies is shifted into the longer wavelength.
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In the summer of 2014, a prototype of the James Webb Space Telescope was being looked at by an optical engineer at the Goddard Space Flight Center.
Analyzing the heat from these infant galaxies could provide important clues to when and how the supermassive black holes that squat in the centers of galaxies form. The atmospheres of planets around nearby stars will be looked at by the telescope to see the signatures of elements and water.
Astronomers say the Webb will look at all of the history of the universe from the first stars to life in the solar system. Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, called the telescope a "keyhole into the past" this week.
He said it was a shining example of what could be accomplished when we dream big. He said it was a great day for planet Earth.
The beginning of the telescope's journey did not go unnoticed by the space agency's paymasters in Congress, who have stuck with the project for decades now.
Representative Eddie Johnson, Democrat of Texas and chairwoman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, said in a news release that the successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope marks a historic milestone in our advancement of astrophysics and space science.
Saturday's successful launch caps an expensive effort that stretched over 25 years. The development timeline was filled with cost overruns and technical hurdles as the 18 gold- plated hexagonal mirrors, advanced temperature controllers and ultrasensitive IR sensors were pieced together. Engineers had to invent 10 new technologies to make the telescope more sensitive than Hubble.
Mission managers estimated that it would cost between $1 billion and $3.5 billion to build and launch to space in 2010, after NASA chose the company to lead the construction of the project. The cost ballooned to $10 billion due to over-optimistic schedule projections, occasional development accidents and disorganized cost reporting.
The final lap to the launchpad seemed perilous as a malfunction in the rocket bay, disconnected cables, and worrisome weather reports moved the departure date deeper into December, until a Christmas morning launch could not be avoided.
The director general of the European Space Agency said he was happy. He said, "This would not be good for my life expectancy, I couldn't do launches every single day."
Astronomers and engineers were interested in the launch.
Adam Riess, an astronomer and a winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize, said it was hard to sleep last night.
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The space telescope flew away from the rocket that launched it.
Astronomers and rocket engineers have called the journey to the launch the first step of six months of anxiety.
The solar panel deployment was the first in a monthlong series of maneuvers and deployment with what NASA calls " 343 single points of failure."
Pam Melroy, NASA's deputy administrator, said she could finally start breathing again after the solar panels came out. We have a lot of hard days ahead of us, but you can't start until this part is perfect.
Astronomers say that the most tense moment will be the unfolding of a giant sunscreen, the size of a tennis court, designed to keep the telescope in the dark and cold so that its own heat doesn't swamp the heat from distant stars. The screen is made of five layers of plastic, which is similar to mylar, and as flimsy as mylar. During rehearsals, it has occasionally ripped.
Astronomers will be able to see the universe in a new light next summer if all goes well. They are looking forward to the unexpected. Every time we launch a big bold telescope, we get a surprise, said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's associate administrator for science. This one is the boldest yet.
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The launch teams are preparing for the liftoff of the James Webb Space Telescope on Christmas morning.
If anything goes wrong in the coming weeks and months, the field of astronomy may be in trouble. NASA sent astronauts in the space shuttles to repair the Hubble in the 1990s. NASA has contemplated a robotic repair mission if one were needed, as the telescope is headed to a point beyond the moon where no spacecraft has ever carried humans before.
Dr. Riess said that after the launch, he tells his friends who are notastronomy that they want to hear 30 days of nothing. If we hear nothing, we will be happy.
Dennis Overbye reported from New York and Joey Roulette reported from Baltimore.
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A guide to the craft.
The New York Times has an interactive section aboutexploring the solar system.
