James Webb Space Telescope

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

There are a couple of failures in the early Ariane history. Nothing for years though.

Same here on the Challenger disaster. I remember it being on all news channels pre-internet. Wow, I just did a date check and would have said it was an early 90s incident if asked. Memory huh?

A lot of people will stop breathing for the first few minutes when the rocket blasts off. I hope there is plenty of oxygen on hand.

Here's a nice write up on the upgrades made at the Johnson Space Center's famous "Chamber A" which was used for testing Apollo moon landing gear. The entire 60 and 70's era equipment was upgraded. They removed all the old hardware used for cooling (vacuum and circulating pumps), air conditioning, power, and the cryogenics which was using liquid nitrogen. All have new equipment and they switched to liquid helium.

One of the things that was newly constructed and installed in Chamber A was a cold gaseous helium-cooled 'shroud' that enables the chamber to reach colder temperatures than it had ever reached before. This addition was necessary because Webb's telescope and scientific 'instruments' (cameras and spectrometers) will operate at temperatures of around 37 Kelvin (K), which is around minus 393 Fahrenheit (F) / minus 236 Celsius (C). Chamber A previously had only a liquid nitrogen shroud inside, and because liquid nitrogen is 77K, you couldn't get test articles any colder than that. "We added a cold helium gas shroud that we've run down to about 11K, which is (minus 440 F/minus 262 C, thus enabling us to get the telescope to its operating regime and even to as low as around 20K to reach 'survival' temps," Geithner said.

Once telescope testing is complete, this sequence will run in reverse and the telescope will be shipped to Northrop Grumman Aerospace in California to meet up with the Spacecraft Element [spacecraft bus and sunshield] and finally become one complete James Webb Space Telescope observatory.

phys.org, May 31, 2017 - NASA's Apollo-era test chamber now James Webb Space Telescope ready.

Slowly, JWST is coming together!

You-tube video of the move of JWST to the Johnson Space Center where it will be placed in Chamber A.

Nice to see how it folds up. Its a thing of beauty to see!

Webb Mover to Johnson Space Center (NASA)

From the very first galaxies after the Big Bang, to searching for chemical fingerprints of life on Enceladus, Europa, and exoplanets like TRAPPIST-1e, Webb will be looking at some incredible things in our universe," said Eric Smith, James Webb Space Telescope Director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "With over 2100 initial observations planned, there is no limit to what we might discover with this incredible telescope."

The broad spectrum of initial GTO [Guaranteed Time Observations] observations will address all of the science areas Webb is designed to explore, from first light and the assembly of galaxies to the birth of stars and planets. Targets will range from the solar system's outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) and icy Kuiper Belt to exoplanets to distant galaxies in the young universe.

phys.org, June 15, 2017 - Icy moons, galaxy clusters, and distant worlds selected targets for Webb Telescope.

The 2100 observations occur over a time period of "almost a year" (according to source) and are called a "cycle". This is an announcement of Cycle1. Oh the places we'll see!

Squeee!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Do we have a official date of when the JWST is suppose to be launched into orbit, I am patiently awaiting the see the first amazing pictures that come back to us from it. I think it is going to blow everything the Hubble has done out of the water, and believe me I personally think the Hubble has captured some of the single most breathtaking images of the Cosmos ever.

a reply to: caf1550

October 2018.

a reply to: caf1550

As Zaphod says, next year October but no specific date.

They still have some assembling to do and then a couple more tests when it is put together. The main science parts are all together and undergoing cold temperature testing. If they find any issues those will have to be resolved so there is no date this far out.

I think you are correct in saying this going to be mind blowing! I like the announcement of what is going to be imaged. Makes me just that much more eager!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Thanks for the update, I couldn't agree more with you.

Think of what this is going to do for astrophysics and astronomy in general. It could quite possibly help us answer some of our toughest questions. I'm very excited to see what it brings forward and uncovers.

GSEG-1 [Ground Segment Test - 1], which completed on June 20, tested all of the communications systems required to support the telescope's launch, commissioning and normal operations once it is in orbit. The test showed successful end-to-end communication between the Webb telescope's spacecraft bus, currently located at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems in Redondo Beach, California, and the telescope's mission operations center at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. Before this test, the flight operations team had only verified communication with the telescope piecemeal—in several smaller tests that were not end-to-end.

During the test, the team sent the same command procedures to the telescope that will be sent during its nearly 1 million mile journey to its orbit at the second Lagrange point, known as L2. The team verified the configuration of the telescope's onboard computers and also received telemetry from the telescope, including science data and health monitoring data.

phys.org, July 31, 2017 - NASA tests the Webb telescope's communication skills.

Good news! At least it can "phone home" when it gets out to its orbit.

Little by little, next year is creeping in. I can't believe we are already at the end of July of this year!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Talked to a C-5 crew dog at the Fairchild show on Saturday. He said that the C-5M, that was formerly a C model, that will transport the Webb telescope has something like one inch clearance all around when they load it. It's the only aircraft that can transport it.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Wow that's a tight fit! And I thought the rocket fitting was tough!

The thing is all folded up like super origami! I like the mirrors unfolded pics. It is a real beauty to see them unfurled and all golden!

William Jeffs, a spokesperson for Johnson Space Center, said in an email Monday there have been “no issues with operations.” “All backup facility systems required to maintain the telescope have been checked and readied for use if necessary,” Jeffs said.

Kendrew said staffers were feeling anxious, and many slept in offices or conference rooms at Johnson when they couldn’t get home or to hotel rooms. “It’s been challenging at times to concentrate on work whilst our phones are sounding emergency flood and tornado alerts several times an hour, and knowing that people just miles from our desks, maybe even family or friends, are in danger and possibly losing their homes,” she said. But “we’ve actually been able to continue amazingly well with the testing,” she said.

TheAtlantic.com - NASA's New Space Telescope Is in Harvey's Path.

I'd expect nobody thought 9 trillion gallons of water would drop from the sky! The crew watching JWST in it's cryo container (it is still undergoing the 100 day test) stayed at work the article says. They have watched the water rise closer but have had no incursions. They and the satellite are all safe. The article says they were sleeping in conference rooms because leaving for home is too dangerous.

Seeing all the photos Chilling before-and-after photos show the scale of Houston’s flooding, had me wondering how the telescope was doing.

Nice to hear they are both fine (workers and JWST)!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

That would suck. The damn thing gets damaged over a fluke hurricane.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Just looking around at the photos of Houston, I was hoping NASA SC was on an "island" and not down in a hole!

It is all that concrete. Everything pools up then flows down hill. All this time, money, and effort, AND YOU PARKED THE SATELLITE IN A HOLE?!! With a hurricane coming??!! lol. And it is probably not the only time something like that happened. Compound your bad luck. All the historic screw ups come to mind. Galloping Gertie for example.

Nice to see it made it through. That will be some story to tell! "Back in... aught 17, I think it was. Hurricane Harvey rolled through. Stayed up for three days making sure the power didn't go out..."

a reply to: Zaphod58

Even a better update!

So what’s it like riding out a hurricane at Mission Control? Flight Director Royce Renfrew described it in a tweet shortly after he arrived to relieve another flight director on Sunday night as “kind of surreal with off duty folks crashed in the [flight control rooms].” Later in the day, he described JSC as an island surrounded by floodwaters.

NASA’s other facilities in the Houston area include Ellington Field, which is home to a fleet of T-38 jets used for astronaut flight training. Ellington formerly housed the infamous KC-135 “Vomit Comet,” which NASA decommissioned in 2004. “The NASA side of Ellington Field is doing fine and all aircraft are safe,” wrote the representative. Ellington is also home to a Texas Air National Guard unit, a Coast Guard air station, and a Civil Air Patrol squadron.

"The [Johnson Space Center] Recovery Team hasn't had a chance to do a full assessment of the storm's effect on the center yet," wrote the NASA representative. "The team has been handling issues as they come up and will conduct a full assessment when the storm threat subsides."

Arstechnica.com, Aug. 29, 2017 - How NASA’s Johnson Space Center is riding out the hurricane.

The article starts off saying there are about 125 people at JSC holding down the fort. I thought they were an "island" and not a "hole" as I joked yesterday. The have a "disaster recovery" site in Huntsville, Alabama and a mobile team back up for that site.

They said the biggest problem is employees trying to come in to work! They're going to open up their Rec Center for workers and their families that need access to clean facilities and power. At the time of the article, 90% of employees had contacted back to JSC for a status check.

to the NASA workers for their dedication.

Testing Update

Part of the Webb telescope's ongoing cryogenic testing in Chamber A at Johnson includes aligning, or "phasing," the telescope's 18 hexagonally shaped primary mirror segments so they function as a single 6.5-meter mirror. All of these segments must have the correct position and correct curvature; otherwise, the telescope will not be able to accurately focus on its celestial targets.

These actuators can also be used to precisely reshape each mirror segment to ensure they all match up once aligned. The ability to change the mirror alignment and shape is critical because the mirror must be unfolded from its unaligned stowed position when the telescope deploys. This test verifies the actuators have enough range of movement once they are in space, at their operational temperature of about 40 K (or about minus 388 degrees Fahrenheit / minus 233 degrees Celsius), to put the telescope's primary mirror into its correct shape so it can accurately survey the universe.

"This verifies not only the alignment of the primary mirror itself but also the alignment of the whole telescope—the primary mirror, secondary mirror, and the tertiary and fine-steering mirrors inside the AOS," said Paul Geithner, the deputy project manager - technical for Webb telescope at Goddard. "Taken together, the half-pass and pass-and-a-half tests demonstrate that everything is aligned to everything else."

phys.org, Sept. 20, 2017 - Aligning the primary mirror segments of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope with light.

JWST survived Harvey sitting in the cryo chamber still performing test.

This one is a big one! They unfolded the mirrors, then like a guitar string, they tuned the JWST up! The first test gets the gold mirror to focus on a single spot verifying the segments all work together to make one large mirror. They then did the "half-pass test" that verifies light is travelling correctly to the telescope instruments and steering equipment. Then they go from the main focus mirror backwards! All out facing parts should receive all the light signals that way too (called the pass-and-a-half).

They did all this at 40 K simulating operation in space conditions (in vacuum and at temp). All the little mirror motors worked. All the light signals went around the instrument as expected. JWST did the half-pass and pass-and-a-half tests!

One more step towards next October!

NASA is targeting a launch between March and June 2019

Engineers have determined that integration activities, such as the installation of more than 100 sunshield membrane release devices, will require more time.

ArsTechnica, Sept. 28, 2017 - The oft-delayed James Webb Space Telescope gets delayed again.

GAH!

*Pulls hair out*

Survives Harvey. Survives shake test, then the cold test. Everything verified to be functioning and aligned. Then the team reviews their schedule and say this!!!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

So annoyed when I found that out, however I do understand the reason, but still....

Time to update the Science Schedule:

Launch: 2019
Attaining Sun Orbit and testing of space craft instruments: 1 Year.
Start of Science and first cool pictures (minus calibration images): Mid 2020

a reply to: MuonToGluon


Check this out!

For several years, JWST had maintained a development track that would have seen it launch in October 2018. But then late last year, Nasa announced that it was pushing back the lift-off from the European spaceport in French Guiana to between March and June 2019.

Officials cited the extra time engineers needed to complete integration of the observatory's components and then test them. In particular, additional margin was required to get the tennis court-sized sun-shield ready for flight.

Nasa stresses that all hardware has been fabricated; it is now just a question of joining the mirrors and instruments to the spacecraft bus and sunshield - and then testing the two parts as one.

The US Government Accountability Office regularly reviews the project and recently remarked that it thought a spring launch in 2019 was optimistic.

An independent panel will now review matters providing information to the space agency it can then forward to Congress.

Nasa's science director Thomas Zurbuchen said the May 2020 date had a confidence level currently of about 70%.

BBC.com, news, March 27, 2018 - JWST: Hubble 'successor' faces new delay.

MAY 2020??!!!! And only a "70%" confidence level? GAH!

Then if they have go back to congress for more money that whole process has to be approved too!

Geezus NASA! Get your satellite together...