James Webb Space Telescope, information, updates and discussion Options

[bobik]

Nice daybreak in Kourou, when the birds began to sing!

[MahFL]

2 mins...

[Antdoghalo]

HERE WE GO!!!

[nprev]

Textbook launch & separation, successful array deployment, spacecraft is power-positive.

All I wanted for Christmas this year.

[JRehling]

Everything perfect throughout launch and 30 minutes into the flight. JWST has separated from the upper stage and has deployed its solar panels, all nominal. Now cruise to its destination continues.

[Explorer1]

A long journey is over, but another long one has just begun!
Cool tracking page here: https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html

[Brian Swift]

Also cool that there are "amateurs" out there receiving and decoding telemetry from JWST. https://destevez.net/2021/12/decoding-james...pace-telescope/

[Keatah]

The tracking page's numbers are derived from precalculated flight dynamics data. Means that the numbers are approximate & pre-computed prior to playback you see.

As it stands I understand the telescope's trajectory is spot-on. MCC-1a had the potential to last as long as 3 hours, but thanks to excellent launcher performance the burn only needed to be a paltry 65 minutes. This is a bonus. Means more fuel for stationkeeping.

[scalbers]

Yes interesting that the burns can only speed up JWST due to its constrained orientation. The 2nd 9-minute course correction burn was completed an hour ago. Here are the most recent blog entries.

[abalone]

Forward and aft sun-shield pallets successfully deployed.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2021/12/28/forw...eld-deployment/

[jmjawors]

NASA is reporting that they have already used less fuel than anticipated, so a longer mission is now possible.

NASA Says Webb’s Excess Fuel Likely to Extend its Lifetime Expectations

[JRehling]

The possibility of a longer lifetime is phenomenally good news. The observational demands of exoplanet atmosphere studies alone – to say nothing of all of the other competing priorities – is going to require years of observation, and one paper regarding the TRAPPIST-1 system alone determined that if astronomers could only plan on 6 years of JWST operation, they would need to coordinate as a community to get a baseline amount of observation completed in that time. (This is further constrained by the constraints of pointing away from the Sun and near-ecliptic targets like TRAPPIST-1 having a limited interval each year during which observation is possible.)

Even a substantial increase in lifetime will still leave many desirable observations unattainably expensive in terms of observation time. If we had 10 JWSTs with lifetimes of 20 years each, they'd each be booked for every second of their time. Time is going to be a precious, finite, and ultimately scarce resource for this mission.

[vjkane]

As I recall, missions that run out of fuel usually do so many years after their nominal mission lifetimes. If NASA says there is no enough fuel for 10 years of operation, that would be based on conservative estimates of fuel during operations. These estimates do usually end up being conservative.

Let's all get together in 20 years and I'll bet there will be a new JWST image to share (assuming that fuel does end up being the limiting factor and nothing else critical fails).

[HSchirmer]

The possibility of a longer lifetime is phenomenally good news...

IIRC, the was a recent test which involved a "reuse" engine was able to grab the engine bell of an existing satellite that was almost out of propellant, latch on, and provide another "X years" of service.

[serpens]

Positioned in the the second Lagrange Point JWST will not have to use much fuel to maintain position. In any case give the advances being made by SpaceX with "Starship" upgrade/refuelling of JWST may be a possibility within the next decade. Or perhaps an observatory on the far side of the moon?