After 25 years of development, numerous delays, extensive testing, and a significant redesign, the James Webb Space Telescope is now ready to begin its 1.5 million kilometers journey into space.
The NASA James Webb Space Telescope has recently completed the last stage of its comprehensive testing program. The Northrop Grumman’s facilities in Florida was the official testing site. It is being prepared for transportation to the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana. NASA and its partners aim to launch it before the end of the year.
The JWST, nicknamed the Webb, is the NASA successor to the Hubble Space Telescope as the space agency’s flagship astrophysics mission. In partnership with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, this joint endeavor began in 1996. Back in 2007, there were plans to launch.
Improvements to the NASA, CSA, and ESA Telescope
Unfortunately, technical challenges and ensuring to avoid a repeat from the Hubble blunder – when the older telescope had launched with blurred vision – have caused significant delays from the expected schedule. This has also caused its original budget of $500 Million to swell up exponentially to about $10 Billion.
Expected to provide improved infrared resolution and sensitivity over Hubble, Webb is the world’s most complex space science observatory. Its primary mirror is a massive 6.5 meters across, compared to Hubble’s 2.4-meter surface. Hence, it provides 100-times more powerful imagery than its predecessor.
The telescope will slowly unfurl five-layered sheets of Kapton foil as large as a tennis court. It will itself from the sun’s harmful rays and other cosmic rays it may encounter. This sun shield ensures that distant signals will not wash out. Plus, it also provides a means of darkness that allows its powerful mirrors to capture light that has been traveling for more than thirteen billion years.
This will enable scientists to use the Webb to peek deeper into the past, farther than has ever been observed. As an orbiting infrared observatory with the capability of more extended wavelength coverage and greatly improved sensitivity, Webb will be able to look inside dust clouds and planetary systems. Plus, it will improve our ability to seek out and learn about nearing exoplanets.
The Webb telescope will further a broad range of ongoing investigations in the fields of astronomy and cosmology. It will provide a much-needed insight possibly into the formation of the first galaxies following the Big Bang.
Planned Delays
Since its early development in 1996, the Webb Space Telescope has endured numerous delays and cost overruns. Eventually it underwent a major redesign in 2005. NASA and its partners completed its construction in 2016, with extensive testing immediately commencing. Unfortunately, an incident in 2018 led NASA to further its then-2018 launch. It was due to the telescope’s sun shield ripping during a practice deployment.
Integration and further testing of the telescope also met further delays due to the global pandemic. With the Webb telescope completing its final set of tests, it now awaits transfer to the launch site as preparations for launch continue.
The JWST’s Journey
The space agency and its partners will ship the Webb Telescope by the end of September. The 6,200-kilogram instrument begins its journey by sea. It went through the Panama Canal to its final location in Kourou, French Guiana, on the northeast coast of South America. After another round of checks and further launch processing, it will then be loaded onto a European Space Agency Ariane 5 rocket to be launched into orbit.
It will take roughly one month for Webb to reach its final orbit at about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. After decades of planning and plenty of uncertainty, Hubble can rest easy after its decades of service, knowing that its successor will soon be gallantly on its way.
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