The James Webb Space Telescope

[Dirk Hofman]

I’ve been following this story a fair bit and thought this was a great explanation of the telescope, how it works, and why they designed it the way they did.



Can’t wait to see what this incredible machine can tell us about the origins of the universe. In a few years we’ll be incorporating the findings into our general view of the universe. To me it’s really exciting and inspiring!

Launch slated for 12/22 in French Guyana.

[Dirk Hofman]

On the other side of the coin, it’s an incredibly complex machine. This guy goes over what it means to have 344 discreet single points of failure. Glad they have folks much more meticulous and detail-oriented than I working in this!

[Silurian]

Incredible machine.

The sensitivity of it's suite of tools is phenomenal. I'm looking forward to what it will reveal about the early universe. I'm sure it will confirm some of our assumptions and theories and provide data for new ideas and new theories.

[Dru Edwards]

Launch delayed to Dec 25 due to weather. I've listened to a couple of Neil DeGrasse Tyson YouTube videos where he discussed this with experts and it's exciting.

Webb's orbit around the sun is going to be 930,000 miles away from the earth. The moon is 'only' 384,00 miles away. Hubble is only 354 miles away.

Source: NASA

[robj144]

Originally Posted by Dru Edwards

Launch delayed to Dec 25 due to weather. I've listened to a couple of Neil DeGrasse Tyson YouTube videos where he discussed this with experts and it's exciting.

Webb's orbit around the sun is going to be 930,000 miles away from the earth. The moon is 'only' 384,00 miles away. Hubble is only 354 miles away.

Source: NASA

Right Dru. It's at a Lagrange point.

It also means it can't repaired if something is off like Hubble was at first.

[Dru Edwards]

Originally Posted by robj144

Right Dru. It's at a Lagrange point.

It also means it can't repaired if something is off like Hubble was at first.

That's what DeGrass Tyson was saying... we can't fix it if something is wrong with it. I remember the big news about the Hubble issue when it went up. Fortunately it was fixable.

[hubcapsc]

On the other side of the coin, it’s an incredibly complex machine.

I've been reading about it, and it is.

I think the whole "lowering perseverance on a rope" mission was pretty
complex and that worked.

Elon Musk let some pretty smart guy (able to ask smart questions and
understand the answers) follow him through all three buildings
at the complex where they're building the Starship and film it for
youtube. The stuff going on there seems mind boggling...

-Mike

[Dirk Hofman]

Originally Posted by Dru Edwards

That's what DeGrass Tyson was saying... we can't fix it if something is wrong with it. I remember the big news about the Hubble issue when it went up. Fortunately it was fixable.

Yes, sounds like no way to get at it. They did adress the issue with Hubble which if I recall was mirror alignment. Webb has implemented remote adjustment of all the mirrors. Of course with all the other points of failure the complexity is still a huge challenge.

[Daniel Grenier]

Interesting article here from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) about why this telescope is a really big deal. Good, plain overview of this amazing endeavour. Fingers crossed all the way as so many things must work flawlessly.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/webb...ium%3Dsharebar

[robj144]

James Webb is very cool and I'm excited about it, but here on Earth construction of the Extreme Large Telescope is taking place which has nearly the same capability as James Webb.

Here's the size of it:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope

[edcmat-l1]

Good morning and MERRY CHRISTMAS phellow AGF fellows LOL

Live link! Pretty exciting stuff. Hope it goes up today. Can't wait to see what it sees!

[Dru Edwards]

Cool! Lift off is set for 7:20am EST this morning, with a launch window up to 7:52am.

Originally Posted by edcmat-l1

Good morning and MERRY CHRISTMAS phellow AGF fellows LOL

Live link! Pretty exciting stuff. Hope it goes up today. Can't wait to see what it sees!

[edcmat-l1]

Radar looks clear although there's rain in the forecast.

https://www.accuweather.com/en/gf/na.../weather-radar

[Dru Edwards]

Watching the countdown... 2 minutes!

[Gitfiddlemann]

Successful lift-off! Hooray. Now it feels like Christmas.
Let's hope that everything deploys properly when it finally gets to its final location, and that we have no surprises like we did initially with Hubble.
It's a great day so far for exploration, NASA, and space travel agencies globally who participated.