Posted on 12/24/2021 10:34:14 PM PST by Libloather
NASA and its international partners are counting down to a Christmas Day launch of the most expensive science probe ever built, a $10 billion telescope designed to capture starlight from the first galaxies born in the fiery crucible of the Big Bang.
Billions over budget and years behind schedule, the James Webb Space Telescope is targeted for blastoff from the European Space Agency's Kourou, French Guiana, launch site at 7:20 a.m. EST Saturday atop an Ariane 5 rocket, weather permitting.
Equipped with two solid-fuel strap-on boosters, the workhorse rocket will propel Webb away from the northeast coast of South America on an easterly trajectory, releasing the telescope to fly on its own about 27 minutes after liftoff.
Still folded up to fit inside the Ariane 5's nose cone, the observatory's single solar panel, critical for recharging the spacecraft's batteries, is scheduled to unfold about six minutes after separation, the first in a series of major milestones.
Webb will need a month to reach its planned parking place a million miles from Earth on the far side of the moon's orbit - known as Lagrange Point 2 - where it can circle the sun in gravitational lockstep with Earth, providing the cold, dark environment needed for mission success.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Just deployed the solar array. All systems go!
Bill Nelson has been that way since he was about 35. Still hard to believe he flew a Shuttle mission (as a hitch hiker).
The Webb Telescope will actually orbit a specific completely empty point in space.
That point is apparently somewhat mobile, so Webb's orbit must be continually adjusted during its productive life time.
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