James Webb Space Telescope

[BridgeTroll]

If successful it will be EPIC!  The most advanced time machine ever...

December 24 launch.

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/index.html

https://youtu.be/n9MxqFfBTzQ

[BridgeTroll]

Hubble orbits 340 miles in altitude... Webb will orbit a million miles out...

https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-engineering-challenges

[jcjohnpaint]

So exciting

[BridgeTroll]

It should be... but isn't...

[BridgeTroll]

A poor weather forecast at the Guiana Space Center in South America has forced officials to delay the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope by one day to Dec. 25, Christmas morning, mission managers said Tuesday.

The 32-minute launch window Saturday opens at 7:20 a.m. EST (1220 GMT). Ground crews at the jungle spaceport in French Guiana planned to transfer the European Ariane 5 rocket with the Webb telescope on top to the ELA-3 launch zone Wednesday.

That rollout, expected to take about two hours, has been delayed to Thursday.

[Adam White]

If successful it will be EPIC!  The most advanced time machine ever...

Bill and Ted would like a word...

[BridgeTroll]

https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/12/23/webb-telescope-is-a-time-machine-for-astronomers-to-see-the-cosmic-dawn/

[BridgeTroll]

Launch is the easy part...

https://gizmodo.com/here-s-what-could-still-go-wrong-with-the-webb-space-te-1848259511

[BridgeTroll]

Successful launch... solar array deployed...

[BridgeTroll]

Over the next thirty days a variety of deployments must occur... here is a really good step by step, day by day depiction.

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/deploymentExplorer.html#5

[BridgeTroll]

The previous post contains a link to the deployment schedule... this link displays the current speed and location in reference to earth and L2...

https://webb.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html

[Charles Hunter]

To coin a phrase - fascinating.
Amazing how many steps there are to getting this thing fully operational.

I think ZZ Top explained it best why the James Webb is going to hang out around LaGrange'

Rumour spreadin' 'round
In that Texas town
About that shack outside La Grange
And you know what I'm talkin' about
Just let me know if you wanna go
To that home out on the range
They got a lot of nice girls

[BridgeTroll]

The first of 3 mid course correction burns occurred last night without issue. In the coming days JWST will begin unfolding it's many parts...

[jcjohnpaint]

[BridgeTroll]

Second mid course correction burn completed...

More Than You Wanted to Know About Webb's Mid-Course Corrections!

On Dec. 25, the Webb team successfully executed the first of three planned orbit corrections to get Webb into its halo orbit around the second Lagrange point, L2. To hear more about these important maneuvers, here is Randy Kimble, the Webb Integration, Test, and Commissioning Project Scientist, at NASA Goddard:

In sending the Webb Observatory into its orbit around the Sun-Earth L2 point, the vast majority of the energy required was provided by the Ariane 5 rocket. After release of the observatory from the rocket, several small tweaks to the trajectory are planned, to ease the observatory into its operating orbit about one month after launch.

The largest and most important mid-course correction (MCC), designated MCC-1a, has already been successfully executed as planned, beginning 12.5 hours after launch. This time was chosen because the earlier the course correction is made, the less propellant it requires. This leaves as much remaining fuel as possible for Webb's ordinary operations over its lifetime: station-keeping (small adjustments to keep Webb in its desired orbit) and momentum unloading (to counteract the effects of solar radiation pressure on the huge sunshield).

The burn wasn't scheduled immediately after launch to give time for the flight dynamics team to receive tracking data from three ground stations, widely separated over the surface of the Earth, thus providing high accuracy for their determination of Webb's position and velocity, necessary to determine the precise parameters for the correction burn. Ground stations in Malindi Kenya, Canberra Australia, and Madrid Spain provided the necessary ranging data.  There was also time to do a test firing of the required thruster before executing the actual burn. We are currently doing the analysis to determine just how much more correction of Webb's trajectory will be needed, and how much fuel will be left, but we already know that the Ariane 5's placement of Webb was better than requirements.

One interesting aspect of the Webb launch and the Mid-Course Corrections is that we always "aim a little bit low." The L2 point and Webb's loose orbit around it are only semi-stable. In the radial direction (along the Sun-Earth line), there is an equilibrium point where in principle it would take no thrust to remain in position; however, that point is not stable. If Webb drifted a little bit toward Earth, it would continue (in the absence of corrective thrust) to drift ever closer; if it drifted a little bit away from Earth, it would continue to drift farther away. Webb has thrusters only on the warm, Sun-facing side of the observatory. We would not want the hot thrusters to contaminate the cold side of the observatory with unwanted heat or with rocket exhaust that could condense on the cold optics. This means the thrusters can only push Webb away from the Sun, not back toward the Sun (and Earth). We thus design the launch insertion and the MCCs to always keep us on the uphill side of the gravitational potential,  we never want to go over the crest – and drift away downhill on the other side, with no ability to come back.

Therefore, the Ariane 5 launch insertion was intentionally designed to leave some velocity in the anti-Sun direction to be provided by the payload. MCC-1a similarly was executed to take out most, but not all, of the total required correction (to be sure that this burn also would not overshoot). In the same way, MCC-1b, scheduled for 2.5 days after launch, and MCC-2, scheduled for about 29 days after launch (but neither time-critical), and the station-keeping burns throughout the mission lifetime will always thrust just enough to leave us a little bit shy of the crest. We want Sisyphus to keep rolling this rock up the gentle slope near the top of the hill – we never want it to roll over the crest and get away from him. The Webb team's job, guided by the Flight Dynamics Facility at NASA Goddard, is to make sure it doesn't.