After a 29-day nail of travel and ultra-Precise implementations, the James Webb Space Telescope shot again to the propellant to reach the last parking lot on one million miles from the earth.
“Webb, welcome home,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement after a five-minute power-up increased the telescope’s speed by just 3.6 miles per hour. “Congratulations to the team for all their hard work to ensure Webb’s safe arrival at L2 today.”
L2 refers to a type of stable orbit known as the Lagrange point. Technically, Webb is now orbiting the sun and staying aligned with Earth a million miles away.
“We are one step closer to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. And I can’t wait to see the first new glimpses into the Webb universe this summer,” Nelson said.
Arriving at L2 capped a treacherous 29 days during which everyone involved in the $10 billion program — from scientists to NASA officials to companies involved in building the infrared telescope — readily admitted that the engineering challenges were daunting was. Everything had to work perfectly to launch, unfold mirror segments, and reach its final position.
Going forward, engineers will spend about three months aligning Webb’s 18 gold-coated hexagonal mirrors with the final configuration.
Webb uses a massive 21-foot hexagonal tiles primary mirror for the cosmos. Its primary ability is infrared observation, meaning it will be able to peer through obstacles like dust clouds to see the early stages of star formation. Scientists even hope that the atmospheric compositions of distant planets are promising.
Webb is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, that revolutionized science with the Hubble Deep Field, which captured thousands of galaxies in a single image.
Total cost to NASA: $10 billion in its 25-year development history, not including ESA and CSA costs. Northrop Grumman was the prime contractor for the project while Lockheed Martin built the main infrared instrument known as the Near Infrared Camera, or NIRCam.
The telescope was launched on Christmas Day on a European Ariane 5 rocket. The European Space Agency operates the launch site in French Guiana, a French territory just north of Brazil.
