The James Webb Space Telescope arrived at its new home on Monday. The arrival of the spaceship checks off another tricky step as scientists on Earth prepare to spend at least a decade using the observatory to study distant light from the beginning of time.
Astronomers all over the world held their breaths as the telescope went to space. The first leg of the setup phase needed to be powered by the $10 billion telescope. Astronomers resumed breathing when the observatory unfurled its heat shield and deployed its mirrors and other instruments, a remarkable feat given the telescope's novel design and engineering complexity.
And on Monday at 3:05 p.m. Engineers confirmed that the telescope reached its final destination.
The telescope arrived at a location beyond the moon after a final, five-minute firing of the spacecraft's main thruster, sweeping itself into a small pocket of stability. The second Lagrange Point, or L2, is where the telescope will be dragged around the sun for many years to keep a steady eye on outer space.
Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, said in a statement that they are one step closer to uncovering the mysteries of the universe. I can't wait to see the first new views of the universe this summer.
You can listen to the news conference that was scheduled for 4 p.m. on the NASA website, which you can find in the player below.
The former NASA administrator who oversaw the formative years of the Apollo program named the telescope after him, and it is seven times more sensitive than the Hubble Space Telescope. The first stars and galaxies that twinkled alive in the dawn of time were studied by the Hubble Telescope.
The 25-year development schedule that culminated in the Christmas morning launch of the space shuttle was fraught with engineering challenges, cost overruns, and nerve-racking for space agency administrators. Dozens of mechanical limbs and instruments were unfurled by the telescope, which was tightly bundled up to fit inside a European Ariane rocket. The instruments were protected from the sun's heat with five layers of thin foil-like plastic stretched taut to the size of a tennis court. The telescope unfolded a 21-foot wide array of 18 gold-plated mirrors that will help bounce light from the universe into its sensitive sensors.
It is a image.
Engineering teams at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore celebrated the successful unfolding of the second primary mirror wing.
The instrument side of the telescope is facing away from the sun, while the other side is shielding it from the sun's heat. This helps accomplish a key challenge in the design of the telescope, keeping it cool so that stray heat doesn't interfere with its scans of ancient galaxies, distant black holes and planets.
The L2 neighborhood has a telescope that helps keep the temperatures low while providing enough sunlight for the solar panels. The telescope isn't parked at L2 exactly, but it will spin around the point's center to expose its solar array to sunlight.
The main contractor for the observatory said that if they were perfectly there, they wouldn't get electricity. This is the halo orbit.
The distance from Earth will help conserve fuel.
If you want to stay closer, you have to use fuel. The mission life for the vehicle will be the longest because less fuel is needed. A mission official suggested that the spacecraft could stay operational for up to 20 years.
After the telescope's instruments are deployed and its arrival at L2 complete, months of smaller steps lie ahead before those of us on Earth can begin to see the spacecraft's vivid views of the cosmos. For the next three months, engineers will be watching as a computer program adjusts the position of the mirror segments to make it function as a single mirror.
Engineers need to calibrate the scientific instruments, test its ability to lock onto known objects and track moving targets before they can use the telescope for science operations.
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