OT: The Sunshields and the Mirrors on the James Webb Space Telescope Have Been Successfully Deployed
- By RutgersRaRa
- Rutgers Football
- 161 Replies
The secondary mirror latched into place two days ago, and the two wings of the primary mirror successfully moved into place between yesterday and today. The scope is still on its way to L2, which will take another two-and-a-half weeks to arrive. The next critical part of the mission is for the burners to fire properly to get it into its proper location/orbit in L2. Once it's there it will take roughly five months for the JWST to cool down to the extremely low temperatures for optimal performance (you'd think it would go exothermic rapidly in such a cold environment, but heat diffusion in a vacuum apparently doesn't work that way). During the five-month cool-down period, the calibrations of the mirror and instruments will take place so when the temps are reached the data can begin to be processed.
NASA also announced that due to an extremely accurate launch, there were very few corrective fuel burns required to get it to L2. This means there will be additional fuel for the JWST to use for ongoing operations, which will lengthen the useful lifetime of the scope to greater than ten years. The original concern was that it would last only five years if the fuel had to be consumed to get it to L2. This is probably a prime example of under-promise, over-deliver. I can live with that, and am psyched for the images/data once they are processed and released.
LINK TO WHERE IT IS, ITS SPEED, TEMP., ETC.
NASA also announced that due to an extremely accurate launch, there were very few corrective fuel burns required to get it to L2. This means there will be additional fuel for the JWST to use for ongoing operations, which will lengthen the useful lifetime of the scope to greater than ten years. The original concern was that it would last only five years if the fuel had to be consumed to get it to L2. This is probably a prime example of under-promise, over-deliver. I can live with that, and am psyched for the images/data once they are processed and released.
LINK TO WHERE IT IS, ITS SPEED, TEMP., ETC.