December 25, 2021, 7:20 a.m., UTC -5. Aboard the European Space Agency’s (ESA) heavy-lift space launch vehicle Ariane 5, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched off the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana.
The roughly US$10-billion “bet” from NASA, with contributions from the ESA, was launched off into space with fingers crossed that things would go as planned as it travels the 1.5 million km (930,000 mi) between the launchpad and the Lagrange point L2, an area in space behind the Earth-Sun pair where the centrifugal forces on a body at that point would be roughly balanced out by the collective gravitational forces exerted by both the Earth and the Sun.
At the time of writing, the JWST is a bit shy of 80% of the way towards L2. Its primary mirrors managed to fully deploy just a few days ago back on January 8 of this new year, which marks the completion of the final stage of the JWST’s major deployments prior to formal scientific operations. The successful mirror deployment also ticks several marks off the 344-long list of “single-point failure components”, a list of so-called crucial components that, should any one of them have failed in the trip towards L2, would have effectively compromised the entirety of the mission.
This litany of possible failure points is a real risk for the JWST, as the telescope’s final position at Lagrange point L2 is too far away for any reasonable manned missions to visit it for repairs or refueling. This is the reason why scientists all over the world breathed out a simultaneous sigh of relief as its primary mirror was deployed. Of course, the worries don’t end there, as the telescope must still make its way 1.5 million km out into space before it can begin looking into the origins of the universe with unprecedented detail.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson spoke to the world after the JWST’s successful primary mirror deployment. “Today, NASA achieved another engineering milestone decades in the making. While the journey is not complete, I join the Webb team in breathing a little easier and imagining the future breakthroughs bound to inspire the world.”
Nelson continued: “The James Webb Space Telescope is an unprecedented mission that is on the precipice of seeing the light from the first galaxies and discovering the mysteries of our universe. Each feat already achieved and future accomplishment is a testament to the thousands of innovators who poured their life’s passion into this mission.”
Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate in NASA Headquarters in Washington, continued to address the momentous achievement in a statement from NASA’s press release: “Webb’s successful deployment exemplifies the best of what NASA has to offer: the willingness to attempt bold and challenging things in the name of discoveries still unknown.”
“The successful completion of all of the Webb Space Telescope’s deployments is historic,” said Gregory Robinson, program director of the JWST program at NASA Headquarters. “This is the first time a NASA-led mission has ever attempted to complete a complex sequence to unfold an observatory in space—a remarkable feat for our team, NASA, and the world.”
The JWST, now less than 300,000 km (186,000 mi) from L2, must now undergo the process of aligning its mirror segments to calibrate its optical systems. This arduous process will take months to complete, with a team of scientists on Earth manually adjusting actuators located on the backside of each mirror segment to align each with all the others. This will be followed by a series of calibrations for the instruments aboard the telescope.
The JWST is expected to take some 29 days after launch before it reaches L2, which places its arrival date around the 23rd of January. Once it reaches its destination, and after it finishes its calibrations, the telescope is expected to reveal its very first images by around June or July 2022, which will then initiate a so-called “new golden age” of astronomy as it gives us a never-before-seen glimpse of the universe in its infancy.
(To view more images of the James Webb Space Telescope prior to launch, feel free to visit the JWST’s official Flickr page.)
References
- Margetta, R. (2022, January 8). Nasa’s webb telescope reaches major milestone as mirror unfolds [Text]. NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-webb-telescope-reaches-major-milestone-as-mirror-unfolds
- Potter, S. (2021, December 23). Nasa’s webb telescope launches to see first galaxies, distant worlds [Text]. NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasas-webb-telescope-launches-to-see-first-galaxies-distant-worlds
- Szondy, D. (2022, January 9). James Webb Space Telescope completes deployment as mirror opens. New Atlas. https://newatlas.com/space/james-webb-space-telescope-completes-deployment-mirror-open/
- Woodward, A. (2022, January 8). Webb space telescope wraps up risky deployment but faces more hurdles. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/webb-space-telescope-wraps-up-risky-deployment-but-faces-more-hurdles-11641666407
