After many years, NASA has now officially completed work on the famous James Webb Space Telescope. It is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope and work on it had already begun since the late 1990s, with the cost eventually reaching 10 billion dollars. But now we are very close to sending the telescope into space. The space agency is preparing the telescope and its next stop will be French Guiana, from where it will leave Earth behind forever.
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The Hubble Telescope has had an incredible run and provided scientists with important data, but it still doesn’t have “long life.” Hubble’s last servicing mission was in 2009, and problems are becoming more frequent. Just a few months ago, the observatory went out of service due to a power outage. The James Webb Space Telescope will soon be able to pick up where Hubble left off, seeing more distant and fainter objects thanks to its improved capabilities.
NASA says it has completed all of the technical checks on Webb's systems and that its hardware is ready. The next step is to prepare it for its sea voyage to its launch site (via 's Ariane 5 ESA). Once it arrives, experts will inspect it to ensure it traveled safely to its launch site. Ground teams will also supply the James Webb Space Telescope with some essential chemicals that it will use to maintain its position during the mission.
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The complexity of the project has pushed the total cost 20 times higher than the $500 million NASA proposed in 1997.The cost has increased year after year, with a small decrease recently as work nears completion. The launch date has also been changed several times. Currently, NASA is said to be sending the James Webb Space Telescope into space in late 2021, but no specific date has been given.
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Once in orbit, Webb will await commands from the ground. NASA will need several weeks to bring its systems online and run tests, and then Webb will head for the Sun-Earth Lagrange point, also known as L2. At that point, nearly a million miles from Earth, the telescope will stay for a few months. If all goes as planned, the Webb telescope will be able to give us much more data than Hubble.
Source: ExtremeTech
