NASA has received the best Christmas present you could have imagined. This Saturday December 25 the James Webb space telescope It was launched successfully at 1:20 p.m. CET at the Kurú Spaceport in French Guiana. It has been 14 years (in 2007) since the launch was planned, which has been delayed for multiple reasons but has not diminished the importance of the most ambitious project, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency.
Starting today a path that will last 29 days and that will leave the developers of the James Webb in suspense. The space telescope is designed to observe the universe and to be able to understand how we got to this moment. The goal is to know more about how black holes, galaxies, stars, and exoplanet formation form and evolve. He will be the greatest observer of the universe to date.
To do this, you must arrive safe and sound. The James Webb telescope will have to deploy itself on a 29-day path to orbit, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. It will orbit the sun, at Lagrange point 2, and if successful, it will be the farthest orbiting object to date. The instruments of the James Webb will spread as the days go by until they reach 21 meters wide by 14 meters high, about the size of a tennis court. The real challenge is that no failure occurs in this process that could ruin many years of research and millions of dollars.
Being cautious is little when it comes to James Webb
The initial budget was $ 5 billion, but it has doubled over the past decade. In fact, it is the highest budget in the history of The NASA after the trip to the moon. A lot of money and a lot of contingencies. From technical problems to very long test periods since the telescope was completed in 2016. We have witnessed many launch dates that have then had to be delayed; then came the pandemic that once again delayed the project. This month, James Webb was due to pitch on the 18th but was again postponed due to bad weather.
One of the biggest challenges for the James Webb Telescope is that does not allow physical repairs. This means that, if it reaches its destination, the mission must carry it out without unforeseen events in the next 10 years, the useful life that NASA estimates the space telescope will have. For this reason, the tests they have done before launching it have been more than numerous: they need all possible guarantees that James Webb won’t let them down when he gets into space.
Webb will be Hubble’s co-worker, the first space telescope to offer high resolution images of the universe and launched into space in 1990, until it absorbed its functions a few years later. However, it is not considered a replacement. -although a successor- because the two telescopes have several different functions. First of all, they work on different radiations because Hubble studies wavelengths in the visible and ultraviolet spectrum. Also, Hubble orbits the Earth, while the James Webb Telescope will orbit the Sun.
The space telescope that can make history
The James Webb is the most ambitious space telescope ever developed. Behind all the efforts and investment that has been put into this project is the eternal question of how we got here. If everything goes according to plan, James Webb will help us better understand the origin of the universe and how it has evolved.
Bill Nelson, administrator of NASA, explained that the revolutionary technology will reveal mysteries of the cosmos and “will tell us who we are, when and why we got here. It will open a great door to the past“. For her part, Pam Melroy, deputy administrator of NASA, pointed out that this launch is something that is only experienced once in each generation.” The James Webb will remove our ‘blindness’ and allow us to see and open a new one. decade of great space discoveries “.
James Webb has achieved this Christmas day 2021 a milestone that seemed like it would never come. After many years, it has been launched successfully. Now begins the second phase of this mission in which the stakes are high. “It would be unrealistic if you weren’t nervous,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s chief of science, before the space telescope left the Kurú Spaceport.
A mistake can ruin years and years of efforts and research, but if everything goes as planned, James Webb’s discoveries can make history.