The James Webb Telescope and French Champagne.

[DavidG]

First mid-course correction complete: https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/

Where is Webb?
https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbL ... sWebb.html

[DavidG]

Cool shot from Thailand showing the Ariane 5 carrying the JWST into space and Comet Leonard in the same field of view:

[JimHow]

Astronomy picture of the day, Johns Hopkins right in the middle of things! Things about to start getting nerve wracking again!

[JimHow]

35% of the way there, Davey.
Some hold your breath moments coming.

[DavidG]

Yes, lots happening out there. Sunshield supports are in place. Over the next 10 days there are a number of critical deployments - tower, sun shield, flaps, and mirrors - to get the Webb into its operational configuration. These deployments are not as time critical as that 1st mid-course correction burn. If something’s a little off, the engineers will have some time to make adjustments. It’s over 3 weeks before they have to do the orbital insertion burn.

Here’s a 20-min video on the various deployments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeiQEG450gc

[DavidG]

[dstgolf]

An interesting hike today with a recently joined local hiking/cycling group had a guy who was talking about his 20 yr involvement with the JWST project as an astroengineer who has worked for the Canadian Space Agency for most of his career. I was unaware of the collaboration between NASA/ Canadian Space Agency and the Europeans to bring this project to fruition. This guy was just elated watching the lift off but now the concern is not only getting to its destination but the unfurling of the telescope itself. As he put it the launch was the easy part and getting there is half the battle but there is still a lot that can go wrong like it has for numerous satellite launches. Regardless this was pretty cool listening to this fellow today and quite topical with this thread in place. With many of the posts I felt semi informed following his discussions. Thanks for keeping up informed David and others.

[DavidG]

The guys who are working on this are totally jazzed. There are a few engineers in my local astronomy club who work at the Space Telescope Science Institute and the Goddard Space Flight Center who are involved in the JWST project.

They’ve successfully deployed the sunshield support pallets and sunshield covers, and the momentum flap that gives the JWST a little extra push from the Sun to conserve fuel. All is going very smoothly so far. The sunshields themselves will be extended tomorrow.

The JWST is now about as far from the moon as we are, but on the other side, and loping along at about 1,700 mph. The temperature sensors are now sending back data: https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbL ... sWebb.html

[DavidG]

The sunshields are out and tensioned, and the secondary mirror has been deployed. So far so good.

Northrup Grumman did a very nice piece on the JWST. Inspiring.
https://www.northropgrumman.com/space/j ... telescope/

[Jay Winton]

Some good news in the midst of it all. There's a FB group if you are a user.

[DavidG]

Webb is fully deployed. Now they’ll be doing micro adjustments to align the mirror segments. It’s almost 3/4 of the distance to L2. A couple more weeks before it goes into orbit around L2. Everything has worked according to plan so far.

[DavidG]

JWST has successfully entered orbit around Lagrange 2. Not a completely stable "zero-gravity" point so occasional corrections will be necessary, but they say the initial launch and corrective fuel burns were so accurate that they have enough fuel left to prolong the mission many years beyond their original estimates. Personally, I think NASA underestimates longevity on purpose so we all marvel at how much longer the hardware lasts. Here's a description of Lagrange points:https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/ ... 20position.

The mirrors are deployed. They are now in a process of aligning them, which takes many iterations. They use a single star and look at images from each of the hexagonal mirror segments to first identify which image belongs to which mirror. Then they make little adjustments to tilt until they are all aligned with one another to create a single mirror.

[JimHow]

A momentous accomplishment for mankind.
I can’t wait for the wonders to come.