a James Webb Space Telescope Really on the way.
The massive observatory was launched today (December 25) from the European spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana at 7:20 am ET (12:20 GMT). Just 12.5 hours later, the spacecraft began a vital maneuver on its month-long voyage to its future forward location as the observatory performed a 65-minute burn that ended at 20:55 ET (0155 GMT). NASA Statement…
The space telescope is programmed to rotate around a point in space known as Lagrangian point of the Earth’s Sun 2 or L2, which is 1 million miles (1.5 million km) from the Earth, on the opposite side of the Sun. The spacecraft passed the first 10% of the flight 12 hours after launch. So, when the telescope was at a distance of 100,000 miles (160,000 km) from land, the observatory made a decisive burn in order to safely reach its destination.
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According to NASACalled the mid-course correction burn 1a or MCC1a, this burn was the most important of three burns a spacecraft can receive during flight to L2, and the only burn that requires special care.
The spacecraft often needed to maneuver its trajectory within hours of launch to compensate for subtle differences in where its rocket placed equipment, however, according to NASA, Webb’s exhaustion included a critical limitation: the spacecraft could not slow down. Because it requires conditioning, exposure to heat on the hypersensitive organs. Sun…
Instead, the observatory can only increase its speed, so the launch sequence of the observatory is designed to miss the side of the Ariane 5 rocket, which delivers slightly less power than necessary, rather than a little more. The burning of MCC1a enabled the observatory to readjust its path to L2.
Also during the first leg of his trip to the observatory, President Joe Biden thanked the teams that created the telescope for their work on the project.
Biden wrote in the newspaper tweet Posted tonight. “Webb is a prime example of the power of what we can achieve when we dream big. We have always known that this project would be a risky venture, but big risks bring big rewards. “
Since the launch of MCC1a, the observatory has successfully completed only two time-consuming procedures. From now on, the stages of deployment will be performed flexibly, rather than at a specific time.
However, the next milestone in JWST’s month-long journey will come about a day after launch, according to Timeline of NASAwhen the spacecraft launches a coaxial antenna array that contains the main communications antenna to point it back to Earth.
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