Page 1 of The James Webb telescope has launched!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59782057

Watching the stream on Twitter, it was probably the best thing I'll watch today.

The Ariane phase of the launch went perfectly, down to the second for each stage. They had it until it got to Earth orbit, separated from the final stage, and opened its solar array. The last thing was a confirmation that the telescope has internal power.

Next is a month journey to the L2 Lagrange point where it will take up station and the next heart in mouth moment will occur, and the mirrors have to open up. 300 odd steps in an unfurling sequence before it starts work.

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Jitendar Canth

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"I thought what I`d do was, I`d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes."

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was very cool, I watched the live stream on YouTube and boy was it foggy, lost track after seconds of the ship but the utter joy shown in the control room was over whelming

If you want any idea how nervous a lot of people will be until this is working...

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Watched the launch live, but couldn;t help but think how much the Flerfers were going to lap up the CGI footage that corresponded with the projected event chain perfectly.

I fully expect a SciManDan video within the next week full of that crap

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Writer`s Release

They're halfway through the deployment a this point, a couple of weeks to achieving station at the L2 Lagrange point behind Earth.

The hard bit has been done, deploying the sunshield, basically unfolding a five layer umbrella in 300 steps, any one of which going wrong would have scuppered the whole thing. Now they have to unfold the mirror segments.

You can keep an eye on it on this livestream

EDIT: Apparently the launch was so good, so perfect, that they've saved enough fuel for the thrusters on the telescope to extend it's working life well past the planned 10 years.
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Jitendar Canth

Quote:
"I thought what I`d do was, I`d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes."

Site Reviewer at DVD Reviewer & MyReviewer

Carving out a niche with a pneumatic drill at Anime @ MyReviewer.com

This item was edited on Wednesday, 5th January 2022, 14:31

Quote:
Jitendar Canth says...
"past the planned 10 years"
They spent all this time and money building one and it was originally only going to last 10 years???? Wow!


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Unlike Hubble in LEO, The James Webb is going to be some million miles away from Earth, too far for any manned mission to repair or upgrade it, so it's got to work first time, and it's limited to the supply of consumables it has on board, fuel for thrusters to keep it in orbit, and cryogenics for some of the instruments.

Hubble's mission was only going to last 15 years with regular servicing. It's been in orbit for 31 years, and hasn't been serviced since 2009 (the shuttle retired in 2011), so 10 extra years with no way to fix it.

Engineers are typically conservative. We're still getting data from the Voyager probes after all.

===========================
Jitendar Canth

Quote:
"I thought what I`d do was, I`d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes."

Site Reviewer at DVD Reviewer & MyReviewer

Carving out a niche with a pneumatic drill at Anime @ MyReviewer.com

10 years at 100% efficiency. In that time, given the advancements since Hubble in image resolution, data compression & signal integrity, it's going to see all it can see. Any big revelations should come in the first 5 years, at which point the telescope can be tasked with taking a closer look at the second star on the left.

But again, like Hubble, it's probably keep going until it finally falls asleep, and the old girl's still kicking.

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Writer`s Release

I guess after that long it just wants a newer console to play with, and the Windows version it's running has gone EOL.


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Quote:
Jitendar Canth says...
"We're still getting data from the Voyager probes after all."
Even if it's just the ten years of life they'll be working on the data collected for at least a couple of decades more than that.

Who knows, by then we might have technology good enough to send up a drone with some Windolene and a J cloth.


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