-
The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021:
- Primary Mirror Size Comparison Between Webb and Hubble:
https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/images/JWS...ry-mirrors.jpg
James Webb Space Telescope: Wiki
Participating countries https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Deployment.jpg
James Webb Space Telescope to launch in October 31, 2021
The launch of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) on an Ariane 5 Rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana is now planned for 31 October 2021.
NASA has announced the decision, based on a recently completed schedule risk assessment of the remaining integration and test activities before launch, accounting for impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic and technical challenges. Previously, Webb was targeted to launch in March 2021.
https://cdn.sci.esa.int/documents/34...bb2021_295.jpg
Webb's primary mirror. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn Testing of the observatory continues to go well at Northrop Grumman, the mission's main industry partner in Redondo Beach, California, despite the challenges of the coronavirus situation. The factors for the new launch date include the impacts of augmented safety precautions, reduced on-site personnel, shift work disruption and technical challenges. This year, a final set of complex environmental tests of the full observatory will be completed followed by a final deployment of the telescope and sunshield.
"Webb is an unprecedented endeavour in space science, requiring utmost ingenuity in both the scientific and technical domains, in a very strong international partnership," said Prof. Günther Hasinger, ESA Director of Science. "The breakthrough science enabled by Webb will revolutionise our understanding of the Universe."
The observatory will detect light from the first generation of stars and galaxies that formed in the early Universe and will study the atmospheres of habitable exoplanets.
As part of the collaboration with NASA, Europe is contributing to the Webb observatory with two critical scientific instruments – the NIRSpec spectrograph and the MIRI mid-infrared instrument – and the launch service using the Ariane 5 launch vehicle. In addition, there is a contingent of ESA scientists and engineers supporting the observatory development and science operations.
Next year, Webb will be will folded in its launch configuration for shipment to the launch site and fitted inside the Ariane 5 launcher fairing (about 5 m wide). On its journey into space, Webb will be the first mission to complete an intricate and technically challenging series of deployments – a critical part of Webb's journey to its orbit about one and a half million kilometres from Earth. Webb will unfold its delicate five-layered sunshield until it reaches the size of a tennis court. It will then deploy its 6.5 m primary mirror that will detect the faint light of distant stars and galaxies.
Webb will be next great space science observatory, and will build on the success of another international endeavour, the Hubble Space Telescope, to solve the mysteries of our Solar System, to explore distant worlds around other stars and to uncover the origins of our Universe.
The James Webb Space Telescope is an international project led by NASA with its partners, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency.
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
NASA’s Webb Sunshield Successfully Unfolds and Tensions in Final Tests
Lengthened to the size of a tennis court, the five-layer sunshield of NASA’s fully assembled James Webb Space Telescope successfully completed a final series of large-scale deployment and tensioning tests. This milestone puts the observatory one step closer to its launch in 2021.
“This is one of Webb’s biggest accomplishments in 2020,” said Alphonso Stewart, Webb deployment systems lead for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We were able to precisely synchronize the unfolding motion in a very slow and controlled fashion and maintain its critical kite-like shape, signifying it is ready to perform these actions in space.”
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/f...?itok=DbgCrHFy
To help ensure success, technicians carefully inspect the James Webb Space Telescope’s sunshield before deployment testing begins, while it is occurring, and perform a full post-test analysis to ensure the observatory is operating as planned.
Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn
The sunshield protects the telescope and reflects light and background heat from the Sun, Earth and Moon into space. The observatory must be kept cold to accomplish groundbreaking science in infrared light, which is invisible to human eyes and felt as heat.
In the sunshield’s shadow, Webb’s innovative technologies and sensitive infrared sensors will allow scientists to observe distant galaxies and study many other intriguing objects in the universe.
Maintaining the sunshield’s shape involves a delicate, complicated process.
“Congratulations to the entire team. Due to Webb’s large size and stringent performance requirements, the deployments are incredibly complex. In addition to the required technical expertise, this set of tests required detailed planning, determination, patience and open communication. The team proved that it has all these attributes. It’s amazing to think that next time Webb’s sunshield is deployed it will be many thousands of miles away, hurtling through space,” said James Cooper, Webb’s sunshield manager at Goddard.
The Kapton® polymer-coated membranes of Webb’s sunshield were fully deployed and tensioned in December at Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, California. Northrop Grumman designed the observatory’s sunshield for NASA.
During testing, engineers sent a series of commands to spacecraft hardware that activated 139 actuators, eight motors, and thousands of other components to unfold and stretch the five membranes of the sunshield into its final taut shape. A challenging part of the test is to unfold the sunshield in Earth’s gravity environment, which causes friction, unlike unfolding material in space without the effects of gravity.
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/f...?itok=z6OojCcP
Shown fully deployed with all five of its layers tensioned, this is the last time the James Webb Space Telescope’s sunshield will be completely unfurled on Earth.
Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn
For launch the sunshield will be folded up around two sides of the observatory and placed in an Ariane 5 Launch Vehicle, which is provided by the European Space Agency.
In this test, two pallet structures that hold the sunshield upright folded down, then two huge “arms” (known as the Mid-Boom Assembly) of the sunshield slowly telescoped outward, pulling the folded membranes along with them to resemble the synchronized movements of a very slowly choreographed dance. Once the arms locked in their horizontal position, the membranes of the sunshield were successfully tensioned individually starting with the bottom layer, separating each into their fully deployed shape.
The large sunshield divides the observatory into a warm, Sun-facing side (about 185 degrees Fahrenheit) and a cold-space-facing side (minus 388 degrees Fahrenheit) comprised of the optics and scientific instruments. The sunshield will protect the observatory’s optics and sensors, so they remain at extremely cold temperatures to conduct science.
“This milestone signals that Webb is well on its way to being ready for launch. Our engineers and technicians achieved incredible testing progress this month, reducing significant risk to the project by completing these milestones for launch next year,” said Bill Ochs, project manager for Webb at Goddard. “The team is now preparing for final post-environmental deployment testing on the observatory these next couple of months prior to shipping to the launch site next summer.”
Webb has passed other rigorous deployment tests during its development, which successfully uncovered and resolved technical issues with the spacecraft. These tests validate that once in orbit, the observatory and its many redundant systems will function flawlessly.
The James Webb Space Telescope will be the world's premier space science observatory when it launches in 2021. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.
Banner Image: The James Webb Space Telescope’s final tests are underway with the successful completion of its last sunshield deployment test, which occurred at Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, California.
Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn
Last Updated: Dec. 21, 2020
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- I predict 100 fold more ExoPlanets detected via James Webb Space Telescope within 12 months ... and not only that ... they have much more details about those ExoPlanets!... and some of them have anomalies that will start a worldwide debate demanding much more openness dealing with Alien UFO Disclosure.
cheers,
John
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
Cool stuff. Been waiting for this a long time, since they postponed for many years.
Shouldn't it be much easier to launch already existing satellites into moon and mars orbits. Then we can have "Google Moon" and see every damn detail of whats really on the surface.
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
This is really good news. And a wonderful example of cooperation of as many as 17 (!) Countries. This makes me think positively about people. It means that all is not lost and the exploration of the unknown is still important.
It seems to me that this telescope can be called the successor of Hubble and Arecibo together. Great job.
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
At a cost of 10 Billion how will it be used?
Quote:
Posted by
Star Tsar
Dr. Ryan Ridden
How Astronomers Apply To Use The $10 Billion James Webb Space Telescope
Published 30th November 2020
Astronomers across the world have submitted their applications to get time on the 10 billion dollar James Webb Space Telescope scheduled to launch next year. What do they actually need to do to have a chance at using the greatest space telescope humanity has ever built?
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
⚠️ I sincerely & deeply hope "James Webb Telescope" will be used to study "Sirius A" & "Sirius B" and The Pleiades detecting if there any Exoplanets near it!
Would be cool if they can confirm there IS a "water planet" covered totally with water near Sirius B
... and what about the 2 Dyson Spheres?
- Scientists Can’t Explain What Huge Object Is Blocking The Light From This Distant Star
- Researchers Just Found a Second 'Dyson Sphere' Star
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
Quote:
Posted by
TommyJ
This is really good news. And a wonderful example of cooperation of as many as 17 (!) Countries. This makes me think positively about people. It means that all is not lost and the exploration of the unknown is still important.
It seems to me that this telescope can be called the successor of Hubble and Arecibo together. Great job.
I don't mean to be a pessimist but we should wait to see if it makes it to space before we get too excited. I am not sure we will be allowed to learn what it will show us.
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
Psychologists say that pessimists are happier than optimists) Because they expect less from the world around them, which means they are less likely to be disappointed.
I think, if this launch will be successful, they will provide reports on the information collected. At least to avoid any questions about the advisability of launching such a complex and expensive technology.
It is possible, of course, that you are right and we will not get all the conclusions from these studies. But in any case, it is still necessary to wait until the first conclusions)
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
Quote:
Posted by
TommyJ
Psychologists say that pessimists are happier than optimists) Because they expect less from the world around them, which means they are less likely to be disappointed.
I think, if this launch will be successful, they will provide reports on the information collected. At least to avoid any questions about the advisability of launching such a complex and expensive technology.
It is possible, of course, that you are right and we will not get all the conclusions from these studies. But in any case, it is still necessary to wait until the first conclusions)
What is the difference between a False Pessimist vs (assumed) "False" Optimist? (assumed "false" by the Pessimist).
- I wrote an article about that premise 2 decades ago ;)
cheers,
John
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
Quote:
Posted by
TommyJ
Psychologists say that pessimists are happier than optimists) Because they expect less from the world around them, which means they are less likely to be disappointed.
I think, if this launch will be successful, they will provide reports on the information collected. At least to avoid any questions about the advisability of launching such a complex and expensive technology.
It is possible, of course, that you are right and we will not get all the conclusions from these studies. But in any case, it is still necessary to wait until the first conclusions)
I try to always be an optimist. My father told me many times I am just setting myself up for disappointment because people are inherently evil but I try to remain the optimist....and I live far away from people.
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
The Milky Way May Be Swarming With Planets That Have Continents and Oceans Like Earth
By University of Copenhagen February 23, 2021
https://scitechdaily.com/images/Milk...ts-777x437.jpg
“All planets in the Milky Way may be formed by the same building blocks, meaning that planets with the same amount of water and carbon as Earth,” says Professor Anders Johansen. Credit: NASA, ESA and G. Bacon (STScI)
According to a new study from the University of Copenhagen, Earth, Venus, and Mars were created from small dust particles containing ice and carbon. The discovery opens up the possibility that the Milky Way may be filled with aquatic planets.
Astronomers have long been looking into the vast universe in hopes of discovering alien civilizations. But for a planet to have life, liquid water must be present. The chances of that finding scenario have seemed impossible to calculate because it has been the assumption that planets like Earth get their water by chance if a large, ice asteroid hits the planet.
Now, researchers from the GLOBE Institute at the University of Copenhagen have published an eye-opening study, indicating that water may be present during the very formation of a planet. According to the study’s calculations, this is true for both Earth, Venus and Mars.
“All our data suggest that water was part of Earth’s building blocks, right from the beginning. And because the water molecule is frequently occurring, there is a reasonable probability that it applies to all planets in the Milky Way. The decisive point for whether liquid water is present is the distance of the planet from its star,” says Professor Anders Johansen from the Centre for Star and Planet Formation who has led the study that is published in the journal Science Advances.
Are all planets formed by ice?
Using a computer model, Anders Johansen and his team have calculated how quickly planets are formed, and from which building blocks. The study indicates that it was millimetre-sized dust particles of ice and carbon – which are known to orbit around all young stars in the Milky Way – that 4.5 billion years ago accreted in the formation of what would later become Earth.
“Up to the point where Earth had grown to one percent of its current mass, our planet grew by capturing masses of pebbles filled with ice and carbon. Earth then grew faster and faster until, after five million years, it became as large as we know it today. Along the way, the temperature on the surface rose sharply, causing the ice in the pebbles to evaporate on the way down to the surface so that, today, only 0.1 percent of the planet is made up of water, even though 70 percent of Earth’s surface is covered by water,” says Anders Johansen, who together with his research team in Lund ten years ago put forward the theory that the new study now confirms.
The theory, called “pebble accretion,” is that planets are formed by pebbles that are clumping together, and that the planets then grow larger and larger.
Anders Johansen explains that the water molecule H2O is found everywhere in our galaxy, and that the theory therefore opens up the possibility that other planets may have been formed in the same way as Earth, Mars, and Venus.
“All planets in the Milky Way may be formed by the same building blocks, meaning that planets with the same amount of water and carbon as Earth – and thus potential places where life may be present – occur frequently around other stars in our galaxy, provided the temperature is right,” he says.
Good chances for the emergence of life
If planets in our galaxy had the same building blocks and the same temperature conditions as Earth, there will also be good chances that they may have about the same amount of water and continents as our planet.
- Professor Martin Bizzarro, co-author of the study, says:
“With our model, all planets get the same amount of water, and this suggests that other planets may have not just the same amount of water and oceans, but also the same amount of continents as here on Earth. It provides good opportunities for the emergence of life,” he says.
If, on the other hand, it was random how much water was present on planets, the planets might look vastly different. Some planets would be too dry to develop life, while others would be completely covered by water.
“A planet covered by water would of course be good for maritime beings, but would offer less than ideal conditions for the formation of civilizations that can observe the universe,” says Anders Johansen.
Anders Johansen and his research team are looking forward to the next generation of space telescopes, which will offer far better opportunities to observe exoplanets orbiting a star other than the Sun.
- “The new telescopes are powerful. They use spectroscopy, which means that by observing which type of light is being blocked from the planets’ orbit around their star, you can see how much water vapor there is. It can tell us something about the number of oceans on that planet,” he says.
Reference: “A pebble accretion model for the formation of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System” by Anders Johansen, Thomas Ronnet, Martin Bizzarro, Martin Schiller, Michiel Lambrechts, Åke Nordlund and Helmut Lammer, 17 February 2021, Science Advances.
We recommend:
source
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
Forum Threads like these make life/living a bit more exiting to me ;) at least we gonna see so so much more of the Mysterious Universe soon enough YES!:beer: and I am NOT "afraid" for the unknown whatsoever.
cheers,
John
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
Feb 22, 2021
NASA’s Webb Telescope Will Show Us More Stars at Higher Resolution—Here’s What That Means for Astronomy
The combination of high resolution and infrared-detecting instruments on NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will reveal stars that are currently hidden even from the powerful Hubble Space Telescope. The wealth of additional star data will allow astronomers to investigate a range of questions, from star birth to star death to the universe’s elusive expansion rate. Early observations with Webb will demonstrate its ability to distinguish the individual light of stars in the local universe in a range of environments and provide astronomers with tools for making the most of Webb’s powerful capabilities.
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/f...?itok=6KzdzNJg
This image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows the heart of the globular star cluster Messier 92 (M92), one of the oldest and brightest in the Milky Way. The cluster packs roughly 330,000 stars tightly together, and they orbit the center of the galaxy en masse. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will observe M92, or a similar globular cluster, early in its mission to demonstrate its ability to distinguish the light of its individual stars in a densely packed environment. Webb’s high resolution and sensitivity will provide scientists a wealth of detailed star data relevant to many areas of astronomy, including the stellar lifecycle and the evolution of the universe.
“NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have been transformative, opening the door to the infrared universe, beyond the realm of red visible light. Webb is a natural evolution of those missions, combining Spitzer’s view of the infrared universe with Hubble’s sensitivity and resolution,” says Daniel Weisz of the University of California, Berkeley, the principal investigator on Webb’s early release science (ERS) program on resolved populations of stars.
Webb’s ability to resolve individual stars that are shrouded behind gas and dust in visible light will be applicable to many areas of astronomical research. The goals of this ERS program are to demonstrate Webb’s capabilities in the local universe and create free, open-source data analysis programs for astronomers to make the best use of the observatory as quickly as possible. Data from the ERS programs will be available to other astronomers immediately, and archived for future research via the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST).
Webb’s ability to pick out details for more individual stars than we have seen before will improve distance measurements to nearby galaxies, which Weisz says will be crucial to one of the biggest mysteries of modern-day astronomy: How fast is the universe expanding? A phenomenon called dark energy seems to be driving this expansion. Various methods for calculating the expansion rate have resulted in different answers, discrepancies astronomers hope Webb’s data can help reconcile.
“In order to do any of this science, calculating distances and then the universe’s expansion rate, we need to be able to extract the light of individual stars from Webb images,” Weisz says. “Our ERS program team will develop software that empowers the community to make those types of measurements.”
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/f...?itok=Cn8o3zgh
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is designed to observe infrared light—wavelengths of light that are beyond the rainbow visible to human eyes. Infrared light’s longer wavelengths provide information that other wavelengths cannot, including star formation and other processes that take place behind thick veils of dust, which block the shorter wavelengths of visible light. Webb will detect a range of infrared light that overlaps with those observed by other NASA missions, but will also cover a significant portion of the infrared spectrum that they do not. This infographic highlights Webb’s overlapping and complimentary spectrum coverage with two NASA missions: the Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope. Webb features a combination of Hubble’s imaging power and sensitivity with Spitzer’s infrared coverage, and goes beyond both to provide a wealth of new infrared data on the universe that is hidden beyond visible red light.
Credits: NASA and J. Olmstead (STScI)
Seeing more stars will mean more insight into their lifecycle. Webb will provide new views of the full range of stages in a star’s life, from formation to death.
“Right now we are effectively limited to studying star formation in our own Milky Way galaxy, but with Webb’s infrared capabilities we can see through the dusty cocoons that shelter forming protostars in other galaxies—like Andromeda, which is more metal-rich—and see how stars form in a very different environment,” Weisz says.
Astronomer Martha Boyer, also on this observing program team, is interested in the insights Webb will provide toward the end of the stellar lifecycle, when stars become bloated, red, and dusty.
“NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope showed us that dusty, evolved stars exist even in very primitive galaxies where they weren’t expected, and now with Webb we will be able to characterize them and learn how our models of the star lifecycle line up with real observations,” says Boyer, an instrument scientist on Webb’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) team at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.
- The Early Universe via the Local Neighborhood
Resolving and studying individual stars is necessary for understanding the bigger picture of how galaxies formed and function. Astronomers then can ask even bigger questions of how galaxies have evolved over time and space, from the distant, early universe to the Local Group—a collection of more than 20 nearby galaxies to which our galaxy belongs. Weisz explains that even though this observing program will be looking locally, there is evidence of the early universe to be discovered.
“We will have Webb study a nearby, ultra-faint dwarf galaxy, a remnant of the first seed-galaxies to form in the universe, some of which eventually merged to form larger galaxies like the Milky Way,” Weisz says. “At great distances these types of galaxies are too faint for even Webb to see directly, but small, local dwarf galaxies will show us what they were like billions of years ago.”
“We really need to understand the local universe in order to understand all of the universe,” Boyer says. “The Local Group of galaxies are a sort of laboratory, where we can study galaxies in detail—every single component. In distant galaxies we can’t resolve much detail, so we don’t know exactly what’s going on. A major step towards understanding distant or early galaxies is to study this collection of galaxies that are within our reach.”
As the Webb mission progresses, Boyer and Weisz expect that astronomers will use the tools their team develops in unexpected ways. They emphasize that developing the program was an effort of the entire local-universe astronomy community, and they plan to continue that collaboration once the data come in. Their observing program team plans to host a workshop to go over the results of the program with other astronomers and tweak the software they’ve developed, all with the goal of assisting members of the astronomy community in applying for time to use Webb for their research.
“I think that is really important—the idea of working together to achieve big science, as opposed to a lot of us trying to compete,” Weisz says.
The James Webb Space Telescope will be the world's premier space science observatory when it launches in 2021. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.
source
- JWST Webinar: JWST for Beginners at 237th AAS in January 2021
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- NASA Statement on James Webb Space Telescope Launch Readiness
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which will be the premier observatory of the next decade, remains on schedule for a launch readiness date no earlier than Oct. 31, 2021.
James Webb will ship to the launch site in August with little to no schedule margin; launch processing will take two months. The observatory has completed all the post-environmental testing deployments, and it is in its final integration and folding stages. Final stow, closeout, and pack and ship are imminent. We are working closely with the European Space Agency (ESA) and Arianespace on establishing the launch date. We will launch approximately four months after the first launch of the Ariane 5 this year, which is scheduled for late July. Webb has no launch date constraints; hence, it can launch almost any day of the year.
Webb will study every phase in the history of our universe, including the first luminous glows after the creation of the cosmos, the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, and the evolution of our own solar system.
Alise Fisher
NASA Headquarters
Alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov
source
- Webb Media Day Presentation (full) - May 11, 2021:
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- Animation: The James Webb Space Telescope's Orbit:
- See The Cosmos - NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope | SXSW 2021:
- James Webb Space Telescope - Media briefing and Q&A:
- TESS Finds its First Earth-Sized ExoPlanet in the Habitable Zone of a Star ... Should be high on the list of targets for the brand new James Webb Telescope! (and many other ExoPlanets).
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
An honest question.
With what appears to be some type of disclosure happening, regardless of its nature or agenda, is it now a moot issue to explore with such an admittedly marvelous instrument?
Have things progressed too far too fast to make the discoveries meaningful?
Are there far more meaningful discoveries imminent?
And if so, don’t they know it?
And if so, why the pretense of the telescope?
Analogous to SETI searching for radio waves....
Just wondering out loud.
Pamela
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
Quote:
Posted by
pabranno
An honest question.
With what appears to be some type of disclosure happening, regardless of its nature or agenda, is it now a moot issue to explore with such an admittedly marvelous instrument?
Have things progressed too far too fast to make the discoveries meaningful?
Are there far more meaningful discoveries imminent?
And if so, don’t they know it?
And if so, why the pretense of the telescope?
Analogous to SETI searching for radio waves....
Just wondering out loud.
Pamela
Never ever trust authorities claiming to share their version of "disclosure" and never assume you will get the real full (big) picture ever!
That would be really super naive ... All angles that can speed up global awareness & public interest showing much more details of our mysterious Universe like multiple Dyson Spheres
- Would be cool if they can confirm there IS a "water planet" covered totally with water near Sirius B
- Scientists Can’t Explain What Huge Object Is Blocking The Light From This Distant Star
- Earth-Sized ExoPlanet in the Habitable Zone of a Star ... Should be high on the list of targets for the brand new James Webb Telescope! (and many other ExoPlanets).
- ... and so so many more unexplained mysteries in space!
Do not confuse "UAP/UFO Disclosure" with "Full Alien Disclosure" they are 2 different things for a reason!
cheers,
John Kuhles aka 'ExomatrixTV'
June 21th, 2021
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
I hear you John. Appreciate the response and clarification🙂
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- NASA's NEO Hunting Space Telescope Could Search For Dangerous Asteroids and Other Hazardous Objects Heading to Earth
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
Really looking forward to this one being deployed and fingers crossed they get it right because as far as I understand they got 1 shot at it.
If I were operating that thing first thing I would do is point it toward Sag A* and peak at the opposite side of the Milky Way.
Also if anyone is interested check the YouTube channel event horizon with search results for interviews regarding expectations of peeking closer at exo-planets and inferences about atmosphere composition and a great deal more. Are they looking for Earth 2.0?
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- NASA’s Webb Will Use Quasars to Unlock the Secrets of the Early Universe
Quasars are very bright, distant and active supermassive black holes that are millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun. Typically located at the centers of galaxies, they feed on infalling matter and unleash fantastic torrents of radiation. Among the brightest objects in the universe, a quasar’s light outshines that of all the stars in its host galaxy combined, and its jets and winds shape the galaxy in which it resides.
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/f...?itok=-UXvo96-
This is an artist's concept of a galaxy with a brilliant quasar at its center. A quasar is a very bright, distant and active supermassive black hole that is millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun. Among the brightest objects in the universe, a quasar’s light outshines that of all the stars in its host galaxy combined. Quasars feed on infalling matter and unleash torrents of winds and radiation, shaping the galaxies in which they reside. Using the unique capabilities of Webb, scientists will study six of the most distant and luminous quasars in the universe.
Shortly after its launch later this year, a team of scientists will train NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope on six of the most distant and luminous quasars. They will study the properties of these quasars and their host galaxies, and how they are interconnected during the first stages of galaxy evolution in the very early universe. The team will also use the quasars to examine the gas in the space between galaxies, particularly during the period of cosmic reionization, which ended when the universe was very young. They will accomplish this using Webb’s extreme sensitivity to low levels of light and its superb angular resolution.
- Webb: Visiting the Young Universe
As Webb peers deep into the universe, it will actually look back in time. Light from these distant quasars began its journey to Webb when the universe was very young and took billions of years to arrive. We will see things as they were long ago, not as they are today.
“All these quasars we are studying existed very early, when the universe was less than 800 million years old, or less than 6 percent of its current age. So these observations give us the opportunity to study galaxy evolution and supermassive black hole formation and evolution at these very early times,” explained team member Santiago Arribas, a research professor at the Department of Astrophysics of the Center for Astrobiology in Madrid, Spain. Arribas is also a member of Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) Instrument Science Team.
The light from these very distant objects has been stretched by the expansion of space. This is known as cosmological redshift. The farther the light has to travel, the more it is redshifted. In fact, the visible light emitted at the early universe is stretched so dramatically that it is shifted out into the infrared when it arrives to us. With its suite of infrared-tuned instruments, Webb is uniquely suited to studying this kind of light.
- Studying Quasars, Their Host Galaxies and Environments, and Their Powerful Outflows
The quasars the team will study are not only among the most distant in the universe, but also among the brightest. These quasars typically have the highest black hole masses, and they also have the highest accretion rates — the rates at which material falls into the black holes.
“We’re interested in observing the most luminous quasars because the very high amount of energy that they’re generating down at their cores should lead to the largest impact on the host galaxy by the mechanisms such as quasar outflow and heating,” said Chris Willott, a research scientist at the Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) in Victoria, British Columbia. Willott is also the Canadian Space Agency’s Webb project scientist. “We want to observe these quasars at the moment when they’re having the largest impact on their host galaxies.”
An enormous amount of energy is liberated when matter is accreted by the supermassive black hole. This energy heats and pushes the surrounding gas outward, generating strong outflows that tear across interstellar space like a tsunami, wreaking havoc on the host galaxy.
Outflows play an important role in galaxy evolution. Gas fuels the formation of stars, so when gas is removed due to outflows, the star-formation rate decreases. In some cases, outflows are so powerful and expel such large amounts of gas that they can completely halt star formation within the host galaxy. Scientists also think that outflows are the main mechanism by which gas, dust and elements are redistributed over large distances within the galaxy or can even be expelled into the space between galaxies – the intergalactic medium. This may provoke fundamental changes in the properties of both the host galaxy and the intergalactic medium.
- Examining Properties of Intergalactic Space During the Era of Reionization
More than 13 billion years ago, when the universe was very young, the view was far from clear. Neutral gas between galaxies made the universe opaque to some types of light. Over hundreds of millions of years, the neutral gas in the intergalactic medium became charged or ionized, making it transparent to ultraviolet light. This period is called the Era of Reionization. But what led to the reionization that created the “clear” conditions detected in much of the universe today? Webb will peer deep into space to gather more information about this major transition in the history of the universe. The observations will help us understand the Era of Reionization, which is one of the key frontiers in astrophysics.
The team will use quasars as background light sources to study the gas between us and the quasar. That gas absorbs the quasar’s light at specific wavelengths. Through a technique called imaging spectroscopy, they will look for absorption lines in the intervening gas. The brighter the quasar is, the stronger those absorption line features will be in the spectrum. By determining whether the gas is neutral or ionized, scientists will learn how neutral the universe is and how much of this reionization process has occurred at that particular point in time.
“If you want to study the universe, you need very bright background sources. A quasar is the perfect object in the distant universe, because it’s luminous enough that we can see it very well,” said team member Camilla Pacifici, who is affiliated with the Canadian Space Agency but works as an instrument scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “We want to study the early universe because the universe evolves, and we want to know how it got started.”
The team will analyze the light coming from the quasars with NIRSpec to look for what astronomers call “metals,” which are elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. These elements were formed in the first stars and the first galaxies and expelled by outflows. The gas moves out of the galaxies it was originally in and into the intergalactic medium. The team plans to measure the generation of these first “metals,” as well as the way they’re being pushed out into the intergalactic medium by these early outflows.
Webb is an extremely sensitive telescope able to detect very low levels of light. This is important, because even though the quasars are intrinsically very bright, the ones this team is going to observe are among the most distant objects in the universe. In fact, they are so distant that the signals Webb will receive are very, very low. Only with Webb’s exquisite sensitivity can this science be accomplished. Webb also provides excellent angular resolution, making it possible to disentangle the light of the quasar from its host galaxy.
The quasar programs described here are Guaranteed Time Observations involving the spectroscopic capabilities of NIRSpec.
The James Webb Space Telescope will be the world's premier space science observatory when it launches in 2021. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.
For more information about Webb, visit: Nasa.gov/webb.- How big is the universe ... compared with a grain of sand?
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- How Does The James Webb Space Telescope Work?
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
Quote:
Posted by
ExomatrixTV
Man, wouldn't that be something if the Webb telescope had this sort of resolution....
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- The Webb Telescope Journey to Space Part 1: Packed and Transported to the Ship:
- The Webb Telescope Journey to Space Part 2: Loading and Departing:
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- Find out why the Hubble telescope team regretted ending their deal with Kodak:
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- Webb Space Telescope Arrives at Launch Site!:
- Webb Space telescope's first 29 days in space will be nail biter:
- The Webb Telescope Journey to Space Part 3: Arrival and Off-loading
- The Webb Telescope Journey to Space Part 4: Unpacking in the Cleanroom
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- James Webb Telescope May Detect Artificial Lights On Proxima b
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- James Webb Space Telescope Unboxed in Cleanroom at Europe’s Spaceport
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- James Webb: Hubble Telescope Successor Faces 'Two Weeks Of Terror'
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cp...jwst1-nasa.jpg
Image caption, So much could go wrong, but the engineering teams believe they have all eventualities covered
Engineers like to describe the process of landing a rover on Mars as the "seven minutes of terror".
That's how long it takes for a robot to come to a standing-stop at the surface of the Red Planet after entering the atmosphere faster than a rifle bullet; and so much has to go right in-between to avoid smashing into the ground.
But when it comes to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), it's more like "two weeks of terror".
The successor observatory to the mighty Hubble telescope has been built to see the very first stars to shine in the Universe.
These very faint, very distant targets require a huge telescope design, one that is so big it has to be folded to fit inside its launch rocket, and then, once in orbit, unfolded again to begin taking pictures of the cosmos.
This unfurling has been called an origami exercise in reverse, where the delicate figure is the size of a tennis court.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cp...69_shield2.jpg
Image caption, The heart-stopper will be the five layers of super-thin membrane that make up the sunshield
It all takes place over a period of about 14 days, immediately after the launch in mid-December.
It will involve an astonishing symphony of hinges, motors, gears, springs, pulleys and cables - all of which must work on command and to perfection.
There are no fewer than 344 "single point failures" - critical moments in the timeline where, if the action doesn't occur on cue, the six-tonne telescope cannot achieve the desired configuration, fatally undermining its $10bn mission.
The expansion of the five super-thin membranes that will shield Webb's vision from interfering sunlight look particularly tricky. Heart-stopping, to be honest. But there is a quiet confidence in the engineering teams, led by the US space agency (Nasa) and aerospace manufacturer Northrop Grumman (NG). And that's because they've tested and rehearsed everything, over and over and over again.
"The sunshield is like a skydiver's parachute; it needs to be folded perfectly so that it unfolds and deploys perfectly without snags, without any tangles," said Northrop Grumman systems engineer Krystal Puga.
"To perfect the sequence, we performed multiple deployment testing over several years on both small and full-size models. We practised not only the deployment but also the stowing process. This gives us the confidence that Webb is going to deploy successfully."
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cp...rover_drop.jpg
Image caption, Nasa's Perseverance rover touches down: Landing a robot on Mars is hard enough
Webb's drama begins almost as soon as the telescope comes off the top of its European Ariane rocket.
First, the solar array must come out. No power, no mission. Then, the high-gain antenna makes its move, enabling two-way communications with the ground. No comms, no commands.
But all that's kind of easy compared with what comes next.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/c...3_2x640-nc.png
- Day 3 - Two pallets holding the sunshield membranes open outwards. The long axis is 21m in length
- Day 5 - The sunshield system is stretched out to make a diamond shape that's just over 14m wide
- Day 6 - The shield's five layers separate. They will help cool the telescope as well as shade it
- Day 11 - Webb is a reflecting telescope with a secondary mirror whose booms must lock into place
- Day 13 - The primary mirror, built to be 6.5m across, extends one of the sides that was folded for launch
- Day 14 - The other mirror wing comes out. James Webb has now completed its origami sequence
"When I started in this business about 40 years ago, I remember one of the first lessons I got taught was to avoid deployments on orbit," said Mike Menzel, Nasa's lead mission systems engineer on the project.
"James Webb cannot avoid the deployments. In fact, James Webb has to perform some of the most complex deployment sequences ever attempted, and these come with many challenges."
What if something goes awry?
There are no cameras to show what's occurring when the mechanisms are doing their thing. Part of the reasoning for omitting them is that they wouldn't be much use anyway in the dark shadow that's supposed to be cast by the sunshield.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cp...led_640-nc.png
So the teams will be relying on sensor feedback, and if a problem arises, they'll work through their "fault trees" until a solution is found.
In extremis, it's possible even to give the telescope a bit of a shake to free a mechanism that might have become stuck.
"When I say, for instance, shimmy, you're rocking the observatory back and forth," explained Alphonso Stewart, Nasa's Webb deployment systems lead.
"In terms of a twirl, we basically can spin the observatory about any given axis. And for fire and ice, we can orient the observatory in such a way to put the sun on certain areas to heat them up, if we deem that that's necessary for the deployment," he told BBC News.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cp...68_shield1.jpg
Image caption, Webb is currently in its stowed configuration awaiting launch on a European Ariane-5 rocket
Webb is due to enter service about 180 days after launch, a time period that includes tuning the performance of the telescope's mirrors and instruments. But the engineers will not rush their tasks, especially if they come up against a snag.
"I've been the Webb project manager for almost 11 years, and this team does not give up," said Bill Ochs.
"So, we don't talk about what do we do if we fail? We talk about how we correct problems that we see on orbit, and how we move forward from there."
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cp...omp_640-nc.png
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- James Webb Space Telescope Passes Key Launch Clearance Review
https://scitechdaily.com/images/Jame...her-scaled.jpg
Artist’s impression of the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb), folded in the Ariane 5 rocket during launch from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Credit: ESA – D. Ducros
The international James Webb Space Telescope has passed the final mission analysis review for its launch on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.
This major milestone, carried out with Arianespace, the Webb launch service provider, confirms that Ariane 5, the Webb spacecraft, and the flight plan are set for launch. It also specifically provides the final confirmation that all aspects of the launch vehicle and spacecraft are fully compatible.
During launch, the spacecraft experiences a range of mechanical forces, vibrations, temperature changes, and electromagnetic radiation. All technical evaluations performed by Arianespace on the mission’s key aspects, including the launch trajectory and payload separation, have shown positive results.
“We are thrilled to have passed this important step towards the launch of Webb and to have received the green light from Arianespace and NASA,” says Peter Rumler, ESA Webb project manager.
https://scitechdaily.com/images/Webb...it-777x437.jpg
Webb and Ariane 5: a fit made perfect. Ariane 5 has been customized to accommodate all the specific requirements of the Webb mission. New hardware ensures that venting ports around the base of the fairing remain fully open. This will minimize the shock of depressurization when the fairing jettisons away from the launch vehicle. Some elements of Webb are sensitive to radiation from the Sun and heating by the atmosphere. To protect it after the fairing is jettisoned, Ariane 5 will perform a specially developed rolling maneuver to avoid any fixed position of the telescope relative to the Sun. Additionally, an extra battery is installed on Ariane 5 to allow a boost to the upper stage after release of the telescope, distancing it from Webb. Credit: ESA
Webb will be the largest, most powerful telescope ever launched into space. As part of an international collaboration agreement, ESA is providing the observatory’s launch service using the Ariane 5 launch vehicle. Working with partners, ESA was responsible for the development and qualification of Ariane 5 adaptations for the Webb mission and for the procurement of the launch service.
Ariane 5 will deliver the telescope directly into a precision transfer orbit towards its destination, the second Lagrange point (L2). After separation from the launcher, Webb will continue its four-week long journey to L2 alone. L2 is four times farther away than the Moon, 1.5 million km from Earth in the direction away from the Sun.
Mission analysis experts at ESA helped to compute the launch window, a complex issue because it involves ensuring that Webb can be inserted into its target orbit and at the same time the Ariane 5 upper stage will safely escape from Earth.
The telescope will observe the Universe in the near-infrared and mid-infrared – at wavelengths longer than visible light. To do so, it carries a suite of state-of-the-art cameras, spectrographs, and coronagraphs.
ESA plays a crucial role in the Webb mission. Aside from procuring the Ariane 5 launcher and launch services, ESA is contributing the NIRSpec instrument and a 50% share of the MIRI instrument, as well as personnel to support mission operations.
Webb is an international partnership between NASA, ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Webb’s partners are working towards the launch readiness date of October 31, 2021. The precise launch date following 31 October depends on the spaceport’s launch schedule and will be finalized closer to the launch readiness date.
- The James Webb Space Telescope - Seeing Farther:
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- There Are 344 Ways That The New James Webb Space Telescope Could Fail, Nasa Says:
NASA's biggest space telescope ever is also its most complicated. While NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has faced countless obstacles and delays in its more than decade in the making, the observatory's most difficult days lie ahead in the coming months.
The James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, is set to launch on Dec. 18, 2021 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from the European Space Agency's launch site near Kourou, French Guiana. Development for the observatory, said to be the most powerful space telescope ever built, began in 1996 with an initial launch planned for 2007. Now, 14 years later, the completed telescope has arrived at its launch site and is almost ready for liftoff.
About 28 minutes after liftoff, Webb will detach from its launch vehicle and begin "the most complex sequence of deployments ever attempted in a single space mission," according to NASA. This deployment, which will see Webb unfold and unfurl its sun shield once in space, includes quite literally hundreds of "single points of failure," Mike Menzel, Webb lead mission systems engineer for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said Tuesday (Nov. 2) during a news briefing.
- "344 points of possible failure":
"There are 344 single-point-of-failure items on average," Menzel said about the Webb mission, adding that "approximately 80% of those are associated with the deployment … It's hard to avoid when you have a release mechanism. It's hard to put full redundancy into that."
Webb has 144 release mechanisms "which all must work perfectly," Krystal Puga, Webb spacecraft systems engineer for Northrop Grumman, which built the spacecraft, said during the briefing.
"Like an origami object, proper folding and unfolding is necessary in order to achieve a specific shape," Alphonso Steward, Webb deployment systems lead for NASA Goddard, said during the briefing.
Menzel explained that the team decreased the number of release mechanisms as much as possible. "We found the sweet spot between getting the control that we want, with these large flexible membranes," without adding too many single points of failure, he said.
However, while the mission, and especially the deployment stage, have such a large number of single points of failure, Menzel emphasized the extensive work that the mission team has done to ensure success. "When we identify a single point failure, we give it very special treatment. We have what we call a critical item control plan, and we always throw in extra inspection points. And we've done extra offline testing on these devices," Menzel said.
He added that for every one of these items identified, NASA and Northrop Grumman have done extra inspections and tests to understand the different ways that it could fail, to be as prepared as possible. "We've given our single-point-failure items a lot of attention," he said.
Extra care has to be taken with these aspects of the mission because the team can't build in redundancy, but the mission overall also has many contingency plans, or plans for if things do not go as planned.
"We do have multiple contingency plans," Menzel told Space.com during the briefing. He added that some of the plans have been "pre-formulated" for the time-critical parts of deployment. "There's only one deployment really that time critical, and that's to get the solar array out," he said.
Steward added that contingency plans for Webb range from the super-simple to the very complex, with some plans being as straightforward as re-sending a command that did not go through. He said that there is "quite a bit of redundancy," in much of the Webb mission. "We have multiple ways of sending the same signal," he added.
And the Webb team has been making sure that their backup plans and built-in redundancies work as intended, just in case.
Related Stories:
"Over the past two years or so, the team has been practicing these contingencies scenarios, where [an] anomaly is introduced, and the team will work to try to solve it and sort of rehearse plans," Steward said.
Over the course of the 24 years it's taken since development began, Webb is estimated to cost NASA $9.7 billion in total. The massive space observatory will succeed Hubble with a mirror six times the size of Hubble's and a sunshield about the size of a tennis court.
Webb will peer our into the farthest reach of the universe, observing infrared light. Scientists hope to use the space telescope to see farther out into the universe, and therefore farther back in time, than ever before and learn about our universe's origins while uncovering new information about everything from planet formation to dark matter.
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
Quote:
Posted by
Le Chat
Quote:
Posted by
ExomatrixTV
Man, wouldn't that be something if the Webb telescope had this sort of resolution....
If all goes well with launch and deployment we will have resolution of images that will make Hubble images look like they were made from a potato camera. No disrespect to all that we've been gifted from Hubble, it's done a tremendous service to our learning of this space called space.
There's a lot of interesting discussion on Event Horizon YT channel and some of the most looked forward to results will be readings of atmospheric composition of exoplanets.
I really am looking forward to peeking through the milky way centre. Something we aren't able to do currently because of so much dust and glare I think. But with the JWST able to utilise infrared we'll better see through to the other side.
And we'll set new records for the furthest objects we've ever seen too.
Thanks for following the story John and keeping us up to date.
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- An “incident” with the James Webb Space Telescope has occurred
NASA is leading an anomaly review board to investigate and conduct additional testing.
https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-conte...ig-800x532.jpg
A short update on the projected launch date of the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope came out of NASA on Monday, and it wasn't exactly a heart-warming missive.
The large, space-based telescope's "no earlier than" launch date will slip from December 18 to at least December 22 after an "incident" occurred during processing operations at the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana. That is where the telescope will launch on an Ariane 5 rocket provided by the European Space Agency.
"Technicians were preparing to attach Webb to the launch vehicle adapter, which is used to integrate the observatory with the upper stage of the Ariane 5 rocket," NASA said in a blog post. "A sudden, unplanned release of a clamp band—which secures Webb to the launch vehicle adapter—caused a vibration throughout the observatory."
Let's be honest, words like "incident," "sudden," and "vibration" are not the kinds of expressions one wants to hear about the handling of a delicate and virtually irreplaceable instrument like the Webb telescope. However, NASA, the European Space Agency, and the rocket's operator, Arianespace, have a plan for moving forward.
NASA is leading an anomaly review board to investigate and conduct additional testing to determine with certainty that the incident did not damage any part of the telescope. NASA said it will provide an update when the testing is completed at the end of this week. A senior source at the space agency said this testing is currently running ahead of schedule and that, provided some serious issue is not identified, the December 22 launch date should stick.
Any setbacks now in Webb's progress toward launch feel especially painful because reaching this point has been such a long, long road. NASA's follow-on instrument to the wildly successful Hubble Space Telescope was originally due to launch about a decade ago, with a development cost of $1 billion. Since then, technical problems and delays have bedeviled the complex telescope.
Building Webb has been difficult because its 6.5-meter mirror needs to unfurl itself once it reaches an orbit about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. This is an exceedingly complex process, and there are more than 300 single points of failure aboard the observatory. NASA has had a difficult time testing them all on Earth in conditions that mimic the temperatures, pressure, and microgravity of deep space.
NASA's science chief, Thomas Zurbuchen, said Monday it was important for NASA to ensure the telescope was healthy before its launch. "I am confident the team will do everything they can to prepare Webb to explore our cosmic past," he wrote on Twitter. "Certainly, this step is worth the wait."
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- James Webb Space Telescope launch delayed to December 22, 2021
After a recent incident, Webb's launch has been delayed yet again.
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/TX...70-80.jpg.webp
The James Webb Space Telescope's 21.3-foot (6.5 meter) diameter primary mirror. (Image credit: NASA/C. Gunn)
The James Webb Space Telescope will have to wait a few more days before taking to the skies after an unplanned clamp band release during launch preparations. Liftoff for Webb has now been delayed from Dec. 18 to Dec. 22.
The space telescope, a next-generation instrument said to be the most powerful observational tool to be put into space, has been a long time coming, with development beginning almost 30 years ago in 1996. Webb has been completed, folded up and has survived a journey at sea to arrive in October at its launch site, Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. However, a recent incident during launch preparations has forced the mission team to delay liftoff a few extra days.
According to a new statement from NASA, during operations at the facility in French Guiana, "technicians were preparing to attach Webb to the launch vehicle adapter, which is used to integrate the observatory with the upper stage of the Ariane 5 rocket. A sudden, unplanned release of a clamp band — which secures Webb to the launch vehicle adapter — caused a vibration throughout the observatory."
The space agency prefaced the statement by saying that launch preparations were performed at the facility "under Arianespace overall responsibility." Arianespace's Ariane 5 rocket is set to lift Webb to space.
Following the unexpected and unplanned incident, "a NASA-led anomaly review board was immediately convened to investigate and instituted additional testing to determine with certainty the incident did not damage any components. NASA and its mission partners will provide an update when the testing is completed at the end of this week," NASA's statement continued.
Related stories:
This is certainly not the first time Webb has been delayed, though this setback comes less than a month before Webb's initial planned launch date.
Webb was first slated to launch in 2007. With mission costs increasing as delays continued, the telescope will now launch with an expected budget of $9.7 billion, with $861 million of that budget dedicated to supporting the first five years of operation after launch.
Earlier this year, Webb had a new target launch timeframe of March. That was then pushed to Halloween, which was pushed again to Dec. 18. Now, the team will aim to launch on Dec. 22. However, as NASA noted in its statement, the agency and its partners are continuing to investigate the issue as they move through pre-launch testing.
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- Hold Your Breath! The Biggest Telescope Is Finally Ready For Launch | James Webb Space Telescope:
- Watch what happens after the James Webb Space Telescope launches | Science News:
- Elements of Webb: Gold Part 1, Ep 01
- Elements of Webb: Gold Part 2, Ep 02:
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- The James Webb Space Telescope Explained In 9 Minutes:
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
Yea, who cares about seeing across the universe, I want this thing to show me every square inch of the moon and mars in perfect detail. lol
Not sure if it can focus on such close objects, but im sure it can't right? lol That wouldn't be good for them to have to make excuses why we can actually just see our backyard in high resolution detail.
Oh well, should be cool to see some remarkable photos.
-
Re: The Power Of The James Webb Telescope in Space To Be Launched in 2021
- James Webb Telescope Delayed Due to "Incident":
¤=[Post Update]=¤
Quote:
Posted by
Merkaba360
Yea, who cares about seeing across the universe, I want this thing to show me every square inch of the moon and mars in perfect detail. lol
Not sure if it can focus on such close objects, but im sure it can't right? lol That wouldn't be good for them to have to make excuses why we can actually just see our backyard in high resolution detail.
Oh well, should be cool to see some remarkable photos.
- Why should we be limited by "either/or"
Why not appreciating we can do both and so so much more :) ... there are so any unsolved mysteries & anomalies in Space I truly CARE to find much more detail on any mystery is space!
Who cares? ... I care, for many reasons ... I can name you at least 10 unexplained mysteries & anomalies Hubble Telescope detected in space that needs a second look! Can you? ... If not that explains your "who cares" assumption.
- I predict 100 fold more ExoPlanets detected via James Webb Space Telescope within 12 months ... and not only that ... they have much more details about those ExoPlanets!... and some of them have anomalies that will start a worldwide debate demanding much more openness dealing with Alien UFO Disclosure.
I sincerely & deeply hope "James Webb Telescope" will be used to study "Sirius A" & "Sirius B" and The Pleiades detecting if there any Exoplanets near it!
Would be cool if they can confirm there IS a "water planet" covered totally with water near Sirius B
... and what about the 2 Dyson Spheres?
- Scientists Can’t Explain What Huge Object Is Blocking The Light From This Distant Star
- Researchers Just Found a Second 'Dyson Sphere' Star
cheers,
John Kuhles aka 'ExomatrixTV'
- Scientists Discovered 24 Planets Even Better for Life Than Earth:
Scientists have been finding exoplanets that could be potentially habitable for some time now. There are hundreds of millions of them out there, and more found every day. There isn’t a planet like ours anywhere in the universe that we know of. But now scientists say they have found exoplanets that could be more habitable than the Earth… but do they really exist?
