The James Webb Space Telescope was launched. The Ariane 5 rocket will be in French Guiana, South America.
NASA's flagship mission is to seek the light from the first galaxies in the early universe and to explore our own solar system, as well as planets around other stars, called exoplanets.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that the ambition that NASA and its partners maintain to propel us forward into the future is represented by the James Webb Space Telescope. "The promise of Webb is not what we know we will discover; it's what we don't yet understand or can't yet comprehend about our universe." I can't wait to find out what it discovers!
The ground teams began receiving data about five minutes after the launch. The Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket separated from the observatory 27 minutes into the flight. The observatory was released at an altitude of around 75 miles. After 30 minutes after launch, the solar array was unfolded and mission managers confirmed that it was providing power to the observatory. After the deployment of the solar array, mission operators will establish a communications link with the observatory via the Malindi ground station in Africa, and ground control at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore will send the first commands.
The first of three mid-course correction burns will be conducted by engineers and ground controllers about 12 hours and 30 minutes after the launch.
"I want to thank the team at NASA for their hard work and dedication over the years, and I wish them well in their future endeavors," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA. Webb's scientific promise is closer than it has ever been. We are poised on the edge of a truly exciting time of discovery, of things we've never before seen or imagined.
The world's largest and most complex space science observatory will begin six months of operation in space. The first images will be delivered at the end of the project. Four state-of-the-art science instruments with highly sensitive IR detectors are in Webb. The light from the stars is much clearer than before. The premier mission is built to complement and further the scientific discoveries of the other missions.
"This is the beginning of the mission and the launch of the telescope is a pivotal moment," said Gregory L. Robinson, the program director at NASA Headquarters. We will be watching the critical 29 days on the edge. The deployment sequence for the spaceship will be the most complex ever attempted in space. We will see awe-inspiring images once the commission is complete.
The telescope's revolutionary technology will explore every phase of the history of the universe, from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe. New and unexpected discoveries will help us understand the origins of the universe and our place in it.
NASA headquarters is in charge of the agency's science mission. The Space Telescope Science Institute, along with other mission partners, are managed by the NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. NASA centers contributed to the project, including the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, and Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley.
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