What Will JWST Do Now That It Has Been Launched?

We investigate everything we need to know about the James Webb Orbit Telescope as it prepares to launch into space. Let's start with its name: it was named after one of the Apollo Moon landing's planners.

It's the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope, but it's 100 times more powerful. In over 30 years of research and development, the US, European, and Canadian space agencies collaborated.

A gold-coated mirror with a diameter of 21.32 feet (6.5 meters) sits at its heart, roughly three times the size of Hubble's primary reflector. It has four super-sensitive instruments and larger optics.

Astronomers aim to be able to see further into space than ever before, all the way back to the period of the pioneer stars, which put an end to the darkness that was thought to have taken over the cosmos shortly after the Big Bang.

As a result, the observatory will have to go back over 13.5 billion years. The telescope will also look into the atmospheres of other planets to see if they are livable and if extraterrestrial life lives there.

JWST must first reach an observing station 932 thousand miles (1.5 million kilometers) beyond the Earth and then unfold into its full functioning configuration.

It must then become extremely cold — around minus 233 degrees Celsius (-387 degrees Fahrenheit) — in order to take the sensitive images it requires of the remote Universe where the earliest galaxies formed, as well as other planets and their star systems.

Many things can go wrong with the telescope during these critical hours, but experts are hopeful that all hurdles will be avoided. Then, and only then, would the $10 billion project be able to achieve its actual goal: answering the enigma of how the Universe came to be.

THINGS TO EXPECT NEXT 

DAY 1: 

To get to L2, JWST will perform mid-course modifications. These are the earliest and most critical maneuvers in trajectory adjustment. In addition, the high gain antenna will be erected as soon as possible to provide a higher data transfer bandwidth.

FIRST WEEK: 

The use of a sunshield. Major deployments will begin shortly after a second trajectory adjustment maneuver.

FIRST MONTH:

Deployment of the telescope, cooling down, instrument activation, and entrance into orbit around L2.

FROM SECOND TO FOURTH MONTH:

Initial optics checkouts, and telescope alignment. Scientists will point Webb at a single bright star and demonstrate that the observatory can acquire and lock onto targets, and we will take data mainly with NIRCam. However, because the mirrors are not yet oriented, there will be up to 18 distorted images of the same single target star.

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Source: NASA , INTERESTING ENGINEERING