The James Webb Space Telescope completes the deployment of its main mirror: this is what we will see from now on

On By Garmin Philip

At Space Telescope Science Institute de Baltimore you have breathed since yesterday with more tranquility and a certain feeling of relief. After a complex and long maneuver, at 1.17 pm EST ground control of the Operations Center considered the deployment of the main mirror completed of the James Webb, the very expensive space telescope that left French Guiana in December to become, over time, our new and best window to the secrets of the universe.

The operation dispatched yesterday completes the one that the technicians had already faced on Friday, when they deployed the first of their two wings. Complex and a challenge for NASA technicians, the maneuver has made it possible to reconstruct the pieces that, due to their size, had to be folded like an origami to insert them into the Ariane 5 rocket from which it left Earth bound for its future definitive home: Lagrange point L2, located about 1.5 million km from Earth.

A demanding path to the L2

With one of its most delicate phases already dispatched, the question is: and now that? What will be the next milestones in the process that will allow Webb to unleash its full potential and send data back to Earth, something that won’t happen for several months? As NASA acknowledged yesterday on its Twitter account, the celebration in Baltimore was brief and conscious –stressed the US agency– that “there is still work to be done”. With the final wing already deployed, in fact, the next challenge was to secure it, a process of several hours of work.

The telescope will also need to move the 18 segments of its primary mirror to align the optics. The job –NASA details– It will take months and require technicians to command 126 actions on the back of the pieces to flex each mirror. “Then the team will calibrate the scientific instruments before deliver the first images of Webb this summer“, need.

NASA explains why the James Webb telescope does not have a "selfie camera" to show its journey into its orbit of operation

On the Webb team’s agenda there are also maneuvers to orient yourself correctly on your way to point L2. To do this, you will need to complete your third “heading correction” operation. Once released from the Ariane 5 rocket, Webb already applied a first adjustment shortly after takeoff, on December 25 – of 65 minutes and which added 20 meters / second to the speed of the observatory – and a second, two days later, that added another 2.8 m / s.

The takeoff operation was in fact so efficient that – thanks in large part to the Ariane 5 – NASA has already recognized that the telescope has managed to save the fuel needed to extend its useful life, which experts initially placed between five and ten years.

This is how the James Webb Space Telescope is going to change the way we see the universe

Once it reaches its final orbital position and with the help of its parasol that will protect it from the light that could interfere with its observations, the Jamaes Webb will unfold its full potential. “It is designed to look back 13.5 billion years to capture infrared light from celestial objects with a much higher resolution than up to now and study our own solar system and distant worlds ”, highlights NASA. Thanks to the antenna it deployed just a few days ago, the telescope will transmit “at least” 28.6 GB of data twice a day.

Waiting for new news about the Webb, the latest tweet published by NASA, last night, highlighted that the space telescope has already taken “its final form” and over the next six months, more or less, it should cool down and calibrate your instruments.

Cover image | NASA GSFC / CIL / Adriana Manrique Gutierrez



Reference-www.xataka.com