Astronomers have been on edge for weeks as the assembly process for the most powerful telescope ever launched into space nears its end.
The James Webb Space Telescope has made some good moves since it was launched. The deployment phase is entering its final stretch.
The two panels on either side of the telescope must be snapped into place in these terminal steps. The primary mirror bounces light from the universe into the main sensor of the telescope.
The folding of the mirrors is a crucial step in the telescope's use for scientific studies of the Big bang, exoplanets, black holes and our solar system. NASA considers the telescope fully deployed once it is complete.
The unfolding phase of the telescope is expected to end Saturday morning after the mirror segment's right-side panel is secured into place. The left side was deployed on Friday in a process that took five hours.
Engineers will command the telescope on Saturday to release the latches that held the panel in place. For about five minutes, the panel will slowly swing open so that the three hexagonal mirrors fit with the other 15.
NASA will broadcast a live stream on NASA TV and YouTube at 9 a.m. Saturday is Eastern time. It will show managers in the flight control room of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, the telescope's central operations hub. The deployment is expected to end around 1:30 p.m.
You will not be able to see what is happening on the telescope.
The image is.
An illustration of four stages of the unfolding process of the space telescope, with the fully unfolded telescope at the bottom right.
Engineers on Earth can monitor their behavior in space with built-in cameras. One would expect engineers to pack cameras aboard the James Webb Space Telescope, the most expensive and technically complex observatory ever launched to space, with 344 "single points of failure."
Think again.
There are no cameras on the telescope. Engineers rely on switches, sensors and motors to track its health.
The idea of including cameras on the project was dropped because of technical difficulties. The telescope has a unique size and shape, with one side of its sun shield shielding it from the sun and the other side basking in frigid darkness. The agency explained in a post that wires and mounts for the cameras would add weight and risk to the telescope.
NASA's deputy project manager for the technical side of the program said that adding a doorbell cam or a rocket cam isn't as easy as adding a camera to a car.
Engineers have completed over a dozen main steps in the deployment phase to bring the telescope to its final form, involving hundreds of moving parts. The process began less than 30 minutes after the launch, when the solar array deployed and the telescope parted ways in space with its rocket.
The telescope has passed a number of milestone since, doing well to diffuse astronomer anxiety and quell fears that a structure as intricate as the telescope was bound to run into trouble along its million-mile trek to the place in space where it will stay. The telescope powered on, deployed antennas, mechanically unfolded various limbs and, in the most technically complex milestone, delicately stretched taut five layers of a tennis-court-size plastic sheet designed to shield the telescope's ultrasensitive camera sensors from the sun's heat.
The dark ages are a crucial stretch of early Cosmic history and the telescope was designed to investigate it.
The universe was only 100 million years old when the first stars appeared. It is almost 13 billion years old today. The universe was 400 million years old when the farthest and earliest galaxy was seen. It is not known what happened when the universe took flight 300 million years ago.
Astronomers will be able to better study black holes at the center of the universe with the help of the telescope.
The mirror on the Hubble is only 2.4 meters in diameter, compared with the primary mirror of 6.5 meters on the Webb telescope. It has seven times the light-gathering capability and is able to see further into the past.
It has cameras and other instruments that are sensitive to heat radiation. The expansion of the universe causes the light that is normally visible to shift into longer wavelength light that is invisible to human eyes.
Engineers had to invent 10 new technologies to make the telescope more sensitive than the Hubble. The overall cost ballooned to $10 billion due to over-optimistic schedule projections, occasional development accidents and disorganized cost reporting.
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A guide to the craft.
The New York Times has an interactive section aboutexploring the solar system.
