James Webb Telescope will peer into first galaxies, distant worlds
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope launched at 12:20 p.m. GMT on Saturday, 25 December 2021, on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, South America.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope sits folded up in the cleanroom outside of Chamber A at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas. Webb will be undergoing cryogenic testing in this large thermal vacuum chamber. Image courtesy of NASA.
A joint effort with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency, the Webb observatory is NASA’s revolutionary flagship mission to seek the light from the first galaxies in the early universe and to explore our solar system, as well as planets orbiting other stars, called exoplanets.
The James Webb Space Telescope represents the ambition that NASA and our partners maintain to propel us forward into the future… The promise of Webb is not what we know we will discover; it’s what we don’t yet understand or can’t yet fathom about our universe. I can’t wait to see what it uncovers!
Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator
The observatory had been folded up, origami style, to fit inside the Arianespace's Ariane 5 rocket for launch. The telescope is now in the complex and intricate process of unfolding in space, as it travels nearly one million miles to its destination, the second Lagrange point or L2.
Ground teams began receiving telemetry data from Webb about five minutes after launch. The Arianespace's Ariane 5 rocket separated from the observatory 27 minutes into the flight with the observatory being released at an altitude of approximately 1,400 kilometres. Approximately 30 minutes after launch, Webb unfolded its solar array, and mission managers confirmed that the solar array was providing power to the observatory. After the solar array deployment, mission operators established a communications link with the observatory via the Malindi ground station in Kenya, and ground control at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore sent the first commands to the spacecraft.
I want to congratulate the team on this incredible achievement – Webb’s launch marks a significant moment not only for NASA, but for thousands of people worldwide who dedicated their time and talent to this mission over the years… Webb’s scientific promise is now closer than it ever has been. We are poised on the edge of a truly exciting time of discovery, of things we’ve never before seen or imagined.
Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington
Webb’s deployment sequence is a human-controlled process that provides the flexibility to pause, assess data, and adjust as needed by the ground team — the timing and order of all milestones therefore subject to change.
Some of the key expected milestones, which NASA is expected to host live broadcast of include Webb’s;
Sunshield tensioning
The full deployment of the sunshield, the most challenging element for Webb, will mark a critical milestone for the mission. The Webb mission operations team began the first steps in the process of tensioning the first layer of Webb’s sunshield on 3 January 2022.
It will take the team two to three days to tension the five-layer sunshield.
Secondary mirror support structure deployment
The support structure that holds the secondary mirror in position to focus light collected by the primary mirror is set for deployment about 10 days after launch, no earlier than 4 January 2022.
Webb deployments complete
With the unfolding of the second of Webb’s primary mirror wings, the Webb team will have completed all observatory deployments. This is scheduled to take place about 13 days after launch, no earlier than 7 January 2022.
The world’s largest and most complex space science observatory will now begin six months of commissioning in space. At the end of commissioning, Webb will deliver its first images. Webb’s four state-of-the-art science instruments with highly sensitive infrared detectors of unprecedented resolution will study infrared light from celestial objects with much greater clarity than ever before. The mission is the scientific successor to NASA’s iconic Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, built to complement and further the scientific discoveries of these and other missions.
The launch of the Webb Space Telescope is a pivotal moment – this is just the beginning for the Webb mission… Now we will watch Webb’s highly anticipated and critical 29 days on the edge. When the spacecraft unfurls in space, Webb will undergo the most difficult and complex deployment sequence ever attempted in space. Once commissioning is complete, we will see awe-inspiring images that will capture our imagination.
Gregory L. Robinson, Program Director for Webb’s at NASA Headquarters
The telescope’s revolutionary technology will explore every phase of cosmic history – from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe, to everything in between. According to NASA, Webb is poised to reveal new and unexpected discoveries and help humanity understand the origins of the universe and our place in it.
NASA Headquarters oversees the mission for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages Webb for the agency and oversees work on the mission performed by the Space Telescope Science Institute, Northrop Grumman, and other mission partners. In addition to Goddard, several NASA centres contributed to the project, including the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and others.
NASA provides regular updates on the Webb telescope blog. Public access to Webb’s deployments is available online at the “Where is Webb?” interactive tracker and a Deployments Explorer.
