The Webb telescope has launched

Finally after many delays the James webb telescope has launch successfully.
A tremendous Christmas present for the world of space exploration.
This telescope should make the Hubble look like a model T by comparison with much greater capability.

www.theverge.com...





Here is a video to show what comes next.

a reply to: Bluntone22

Webb has some bling. I got lucky and turned on YT the moment it was separating.
Beautiful sight.

Reflections is Sooo red and shiny..
youtu.be...
Edit: ☝️☝️ that nasa feed is live.

Thanks for posting the news. I looked for info when I got up about an hour ago but didn't find anything until I saw this thread. I watched a Scott Manley video but that was from yesterday.

ESA did it's part. Can't wait for the next milestone event. This will provide several months of excitement for sure until it's fully operational!

a reply to: Bluntone22


Ummm…only eight years later than it was supposed to launch…and billions over budget…

But hey…gotta love the way the government wastes money on a project that should cost mere millions…right…?

And what’s with using the French Ariana rocket to launch this thing…when SpaceX could have launched it years ago…for much less money…


Gotta love some government boondoggle though…








YouSir

originally posted by: YouSir
a reply to: Bluntone22


Ummm…only eight years later than it was supposed to launch…and billions over budget…

But hey…gotta love the way the government wastes money on a project that should cost mere millions…right…?

And what’s with using the French Ariana rocket to launch this thing…when SpaceX could have launched it years ago…for much less money…


Gotta love some government boondoggle though…

YouSir

There's plenty to criticize but no matter what got it to this point, it's a fantastic achievement that we ought to celebrate. Not a lot of good news in the world these days.

a reply to: YouSir

The Webb was built as a collaboration between NASA, ESA and Canada. The plan has always been to launch the satellite from the ESA facility on the equator on a European rocket.

It also will be a million miles from earth so it had a multi year test program because you can't just stop by and change a component.

As for a waste of money...
That's your opinion..
Amtrak get two billion from the taxpayers every year...
I'll take the telescope.

What, for real?

2021 IS a year of surprises, my oh my!

I can't wait to see the artist's rendering of the data it will collect, hahaha.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: YouSir

The Webb was built as a collaboration between NASA, ESA and Canada. The plan has always been to launch the satellite from the ESA facility on the equator on a European rocket.

It also will be a million miles from earth so it had a multi year test program because you can't just stop by and change a component.

As for a waste of money...
That's your opinion..
Amtrak get two billion from the taxpayers every year...
I'll take the telescope.

Yep the same was said about Hubble, yet even with its issues its value far outweighs its costs, same goes for Webb. Even if all it discovers is we are all alone it will be worth it too.

besides when there are these high profile projects I have no doubt they likely have black ops capabilities and uses

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: YouSir

The Webb was built as a collaboration between NASA, ESA and Canada. The plan has always been to launch the satellite from the ESA facility on the equator on a European rocket.

It also will be a million miles from earth so it had a multi year test program because you can't just stop by and change a component.

As for a waste of money...
That's your opinion..
Amtrak get two billion from the taxpayers every year...
I'll take the telescope.

The telescope that has now come to be called JWST actually has a history that goes back quite a ways before the NASA-ESA-CSA partnership.

When I worked for NASA, in the mid 1980s I was briefly the manager for a design study that had exactly the same science objectives and technical approach as JWST. At the time, it was called Large Deployable Reflector (LDR). (Sometimes, because of programmatic problems, we privately called it the Large Deplorable Reflector). It was commonly accepted in the space astronomy community at the time that something like LDR would not come along until Hubble and The Spitzer Space Telescope projects were out of the way. It ended up taking about 20 years of advocacy and studies to finally get LDR started.

When it finally moved out of the study phase, it was given to Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) for final design, build, flight, and operation. Within NASA, GSFC has a reputation for taking too long and costing too much, so we figured it was almost certain to suffer schedule slip and budget growth. GSFC can get away with this because they are (or at least were) very well protected politically by Senator Barbara Mikulski (just like Marshall Space Flight Center is protected by Senator Shelby).

What really broke the projected budget and schedule was the decision to make it a partnership between NASA, ESA, and CSA. Inside NASA, it is commonly thought that making a program international makes it almost impossible to kill, and that is a pretty good bet. In this case, the decision was made early on that ESA would probably provide an Ariane V launch so that NASA would not have to bookkeep the launch cost within its budget. On the face of it, that would appear to save NASA some money. What really happened was that the telescope had to be redesigned to be launched on EITHER an ESA or a NASA launcher (in case ESA couldn't deliver). That put an additional several years and many billions of dollars into the schedule and budget and cost a lot more than if NASA had simply paid for the launch outright. International projects like this inherently take longer than single nation projects because different nations have different ways of doing business and different fiscal year budgeting processes.

So, JWST took longer and cost more that it would have if it had been simply executed with best business practices. However, it will do amazing science.

originally posted by: YouSir
a reply to: Bluntone22


Ummm…only eight years later than it was supposed to launch…and billions over budget…

But hey…gotta love the way the government wastes money on a project that should cost mere millions…right…?

And what’s with using the French Ariana rocket to launch this thing…when SpaceX could have launched it years ago…for much less money…


Gotta love some government boondoggle though…

YouSir

One reason could be the that the top stage and everything in the fairings need to be customly engineered to fit the needs of the telescope.

They started the project in 1996 , and Space X had their first succesfull Falcon 9 flight in 2010.

By that time the people behind the JWT would probably already have started working on the top stage or lay the basis for a design for that build around Ariane V.

The day after the morning before James Webb Space Telescope is currently 153,810 miles from Earth with a cruising speed of 1 mile per second , 29 days remain until Webb reaches the L2 orbit position.

For anyone interested live tracking of James Webb's journey is available Here

a reply to: YouSir

But hey…gotta love the way the government wastes money on a project that should cost mere millions…right…?

Should wait for the results before claiming a waste of money , if Webb delivers what it has the potential to deliver we will all be the richer.

And what’s with using the French Ariana rocket to launch this thing…when SpaceX could have launched it years ago…for much less money…

Webb is a big boy and needs a heavy rocket to lift its fat ass into space , ESA are a partner with NASA and with the Ariane 5 rocket they have a Heavy launch vehicle , Ariane Space also have a very good track record so Webb was in safe hands.

Webb is now passing the Moon , only another 652,672 miles to go.

The next big test for Webb is due to start today , the unfurling of its heat shield.


Fingers crossed.

The day after the morning before James Webb Space Telescope is currently 153,810 miles from Earth with a cruising speed of 1 mile per second , 29 days remain until Webb reaches the L2 orbit position.

a reply to: gortex

Thats impossible, according to flat earthers nothing can penetrate the Van Allen radiation belts .........

It actually lifted off,finally?
Hurrah!

Webb's Sun shield has now been successfully unfolded and today NASA will start to tension the layers of the shield.

It's time to raise the tension on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

After taking New Year's Day off on Saturday to rest up after a long Friday night unfolding Webb's massive sunshield, the mission team aims to begin tensioning the shield's five layers today to lock them in place.

It should take at least two full days to lock Webb's sunshield in place, which marks the final step in its weeklong deployment process. The process involves Webb separating the five layers of its sunshield, which unfolded in a single group and then tensioning them so they are tightly secured for the space telescope's lifetime.

NASA expects to complete the sunshield tightening step on Monday, Jan. 3, and will then hold a press teleconference to update the public on the space telescope's status.
www.space.com...

So far so good.

a reply to: gortex

Thanks for the updates

As unfurling of the heat shield on New Years Eve took longer than NASA expected the tightening procedure has been put back to start no earlier than today.

“Nothing we can learn from simulations on the ground is as good as analyzing the observatory when it’s up and running. Now is the time to take the opportunity to learn everything we can about its baseline operations.” - Bill Ochs, #NASAWebb project manager

To ensure that #NASAWebb is in prime condition for its next major step, our team has decided to focus today on learning more about how Webb behaves in space. Sunshield tensioning has been moved to no earlier than tomorrow, Jan. 3.

“So far, the major deployments we’ve executed have gone about as smoothly as we could have hoped for. But we want to take our time and understand everything we can about the observatory before moving forward.”
twitter.com...

Softly softly catchee monkey.

Tensioning of Webb's Sun shield has started , now the wait begins for confirmation of a successful operation.

The Webb mission operations team began the first steps in the process of tensioning the first layer of Webb’s sunshield this morning around 10 a.m. EST.

It will take the team two to three days to tension the five-layer sunshield. The plan for today is to focus on the first layer, the largest and the one closest to the Sun.

This critical step in the observatory’s complex sequence of deployments resumed after Webb mission managers paused deployment operations on Saturday to allow for team rest, and then again on Sunday to make adjustments to Webb’s power subsystem and to alter the observatory’s attitude to lower the temperature of the motors that drive the tensioning process.
blogs.nasa.gov...