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NASA Space

'A Christmas Gift for Humanity' - Cheers Erupt After Webb Telescope Completes Flawless Launch (www.cbc.ca) 56

Posted by EditorDavid from the just-what-I-wanted dept.
"We have LIFTOFF of the @NASAWebb Space Telescope!" NASA tweeted seven hours ago, sharing a 32-second video of the launch. "At 7:20am ET (12:20 UTC), the beginning of a new, exciting decade of science climbed to the sky," they wrote, adding that the telescope "will change our understanding of space as we know it."

The CBC reports: The world's largest and most powerful space telescope rocketed away Saturday on a high-stakes quest to behold light from the first stars and galaxies, and scour the universe for hints of life.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope soared from French Guiana on South America's northeastern coast, riding a European Ariane rocket into the Christmas morning sky. "What an amazing Christmas present," said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's science mission chief.

The $10-billion US observatory hurtled toward its destination 1.6 million kilometres away, or more than four times beyond the moon. It will take a month to get there and another five months before its infrared eyes are ready to start scanning the cosmos. First, the telescope's enormous mirror and sunshield need to unfurl; they were folded origami-style to fit into the rocket's nose cone. Otherwise, the observatory won't be able to peer back in time 13.7 billion years as anticipated, within a mere 100 million years of the universe-forming Big Bang. NASA administrator Bill Nelson called the telescope a time machine that will provide "a better understanding of our universe and our place in it: who we are, what we are, the search that's eternal."

"We are going to discover incredible things that we never imagined," Nelson said following liftoff, speaking from Florida's Kennedy Space Center. But he cautioned: "There are still innumerable things that have to work and they have to work perfectly.... We know that in great reward there is great risk...."

"We have delivered a Christmas gift today for humanity," said Josef Aschbacher, the European Space Agency's director general....

Cheers and applause erupted in and outside Launch Control following the telescope's flawless launch...
Official online dashboards are now tracking its position. (And you can watch complete footage of the entire launch here.) "If all goes well, the sunshield will be opened three days after liftoff, taking at least five days to unfold and lock into place," the CBC points out. "Next, the mirror segments should open up like the leaves of a drop-leaf table, 12 days or so into the flight." In all, hundreds of release mechanisms need to work — perfectly — in order for the telescope to succeed. Such a complex series of actions is unprecedented — "like nothing we've done before," noted NASA program director Greg Robinson.
Thanks to Slashdot readers Dave Knott and hackertourist for sharing the news...
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'A Christmas Gift for Humanity' - Cheers Erupt After Webb Telescope Completes Flawless Launch More

'A Christmas Gift for Humanity' - Cheers Erupt After Webb Telescope Completes Flawless Launch

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  • Oblig... (Score:5, Funny)

    by LordHighExecutioner ( 4245243 ) on Saturday December 25, 2021 @04:49PM (#62114751)
    ...xkcd quote [xkcd.com].

    • Re:Oblig... (Score:4, Informative)

      by arosenfield ( 998621 ) on Saturday December 25, 2021 @06:10PM (#62114915)

      Permalink [xkcd.com]

    • It's fine, though. JWST launched from the EU where this happened the day before launch.

      • No it didn't. It was launched BY the EU, by it launched FROM the north-east coast of South America.

        James Webb Space Telescope soared from French Guiana on South America's northeastern coast

        • It WAS launched IN the EU. The French Guiana is part of France and thus part of the EU.

        • If you want to nitpick, then nitpick correctly:
          by it launched FROM the north-east coast of South America.
          Correct.

          No it didn't. It was launched BY the EU
          It did. As this part belongs to the EU, oops. It is part of France.

  • Cheering for the mission (Score:3)

    by hackertourist ( 2202674 ) on Saturday December 25, 2021 @04:58PM (#62114775)

    It's finally on its way, can't wait to see the first results.

    I was a bit disappointed by the joint NASA/ESA webcast though. People talking over each other, repeating each other. Better graphics than previous ESA launches (I liked the indication with altitude, downrange distance and speed), but very little video from the launcher (only one camera inside the fairing, no outside views).

  • I can't believe this took so long. It was as recently as 2019 I went to the assembly building and saw myself in its main mirror. Still, super exciting to see it finally is up there.

  • And then the next one (Score:5, Informative)

    by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Saturday December 25, 2021 @05:22PM (#62114829) Homepage
    WFIRST, also known at the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Grace_Roman_Space_Telescope [wikipedia.org] is due to launch in 2027 but will probably be sometime after that. Both JWST and WFIRST are going to give us a really unprecedented level of data about the infrared end of things. And a few years after that, things are likely going to be even more impressive. JWST launched on the Ariane 5, and one result of that was that it has to have a very complicated unfolding procedure to fit in the fairing (the fancy term for the nose of the rocket where a satellite is stored). However, in the next few years, we're going to have some much bigger fairing rockets. Falcon Heavy has a very slightly bigger fairing than the Ariane 5, and they are working on a version with an extended fairing which will be even larger. That said, the extended fairing will be an increase in length primarily, rather than radius, so JWST would be about as limited. That said, there are a bunch of rockets which are going to be even more impressive in terms of both fairing and mass to orbit in the next few years. This link https://twitter.com/KenKirtland17/status/1294050623520940034 [twitter.com] has a picture which gives a good idea of what they'll be. In particular, ULA's Vulcan, SpaceX's Starship, and Blue Origin's New Glenn will all have much larger fairings. Since Starship is even planned to be refuellable in orbit, it will also be far, far less mass limited. If things work out, we might have telescopes in space in a few years which make JWST look small in comparison.

    • Dear god, please don't name a major scientific endeavor after the person whose life mission is to turn criminal justice into a sensational reality TV show.

      Yes, I get it, it's not the same person, but all they have to do is remove the middle name and nobody will get the two confused. They didn't call JWST the James Edwin Webb Space Telescope, after all.

      • She never went by "Nancy Roman" but was known as "Nancy Grace Roman." I don't think worrying that someone has a marginally similar name to someone completely unrelated should be a major concern. My guess though is that just as people are referring to the current one as "Webb" for short, this one will get called "Roman" for short, rendering your concern not an issue in any event.

      • They didn't call JWST the James Edwin Webb Space Telescope, after all.

        That's because they didn't want anyone to know it's a giant laser for starting forest fires.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jiro ( 131519 )

      Unfortunately, both Webb and Nancy Grace Roman see mostly in the infrared, so they can't really replace Hubble. LUVOIR [wikipedia.org] would be able to see visible light, but wouldn't launch until 2039. The Decadal Survey [universetoday.com] released a month ago scaled down LUVOIR but the scaled down version still wouldn't launch until 2039.

    • I thought you meant "Nancy Grace", and I thought, "Fuck me... it's really the end."

    • "However, in the next few years, we're going to have some much bigger fairing rockets. Falcon Heavy..." Falcon Heavy ?! Erm, Starship. 9m wide, payload of 100tons plus. Test flight in Q12022. By the time a telescope is ready, Spacex will not be flying ANY Falcons any more, let alone configuring a Falcon Heavy for you.
      • That's assuming that Starship pans out, and that it matches SpaceX's proposed timeline (which they very rarely do), and that Starship is by that point reliable enough that people will be willing to send very expensive telescopes up on it. That's not a given. But the important part here is that even without Starship (which yes, will be absolutely awesome if/when it does work), the trend towards larger fairings with more launch mass is going to happen.

  • Rumour spreadin' a-'round in that Maryland town
    'bout that shack outside Lagrangian two
    and you know what I'm talkin' about.
    Just let me know if you wanna go
    to that home out of range.
    They gotta lotta nice mirrors ah.

    Have mercy.
    A haw, haw, haw, haw, a haw.
    A haw, haw, haw.

    Well, I hear it's fine if you got the time
    and the ten billion to get yourself in.
    A hmm, hmm.
    And I hear it's out of sight most ev'ry night,
    but now I might be mistaken.
    hmm, hmm, hmm.

    Ah have mercy.

    Props to ZZ Top and RIP to Dusty Hill

    • So far, so good.

      So long as everyone stuck to using imperial units, things will work out.

      • So long as everyone stuck to using imperial units, things will work out.

        Considering how international this effort has been I really hope that it was the Americans who adopted metric units in this case. Though with the right size person using the screw driver you can fit those M4 screws into that 8/36 hole.

  • The temptation is strong (Score:3)

    by spaceyhackerlady ( 462530 ) on Saturday December 25, 2021 @06:25PM (#62114933)

    I'm delighted at the scientists finally having their new tool to explore the universe and look forward to seeing what they can find out with it. The whole point of doing research is that you don't know what you're going to find out. Excellent!

    Like LHC, developments like this tempt me to go back to school so I can be a part of it.

    ...laura

  • $10 billion (Score:3)

    by blitz487 ( 606553 ) on Saturday December 25, 2021 @09:55PM (#62115197)

    Now that the R+D expenses are paid, how much incremental cost would it be to build & launch Webb2 and get twice as much results?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pascoea ( 968200 )

      how much incremental cost would it be to build & launch Webb2

      $15 Billion.

    • Webb was hard because it had to fit on the current launch vehicles. Starship is scheduled to launch in Q12022 and it can easily carry a much larger - so simpler, cheaper and better - telescope. So let's start a competition to build one, with any overruns paid for by the winner. And make sure it's named after some obscure female astronomer, so the manhating politicos fund it.
  • Northrop Grumman caused the delays with the JWST. But, of course, they did not PAY for them. https://www.theatlantic.com/sc... [theatlantic.com]

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