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JAMES WEBB
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Webb will be launched from Arianespace's ELA-3 launch complex at European Spaceport located near Kourou, French Guiana. It is beneficial for launch sites to be located near the equator - the spin of the Earth can help give an additional push. The surface of the Earth at the equator is moving at 1670 km/hr.
James Webb’s Halo Orbit
The James Webb Space Telescope will not orbit the Earth like Hubble but will in fact orbit the Sun. It will travel for approximately 30 days before reaching what is known as the second Lagrange point, or L2. The orbit around this specific point in space will ensure that the telescope remains in the same relative position to the sun and the earth, so that the telescope remains unaffected by the heat and light.
239,000 miles (384,000 km)
930,000 miles (1.5 million km)
L2 (Lagrange Point)
James Webb Space Telescope's orbit
The Hubble Space Telescope is in low-Earth orbit
354 miles away (570 km)
ARIANE 5 THE HEAVY LAUNCHER
Arianespace’s Ariane 5 is the world reference for heavy-lift launchers, capable of carry payloads weighing more than 10 metric tons to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) and over 20 metric tons into low-Earth orbit (LEO) – with a high degree of accuracy mission after mission. Developed by under management of the European Space Agency (ESA), Ariane 5 is able to loft the heaviest spacecraft either in production or on the drawing boards, and enables Arianespace to match up most telecommunications satellites for highly efficient dual launches – a capability that has been proven by the company in Ariane-series missions since the 1980s.
James E. Webb
The James Webb Space Telescope honours NASA's second administrator, James E. Webb, who headed the agency from February 1961 to October 1968, at the time of the Apollo programme. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was formerly known as the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST).
"We didn't feel sure that we could win it, but we felt sure we could compete" (c)
Webb Mirror Beauty
The James Webb Space Telescope’s gold-plated, beryllium mirrors are beautiful feats of engineering From the 18 hexagonal primary mirror segments, to the perfectly circular secondary mirror, and even the slightly trapezoidal tertiary mirror and the intricate fine-steering mirror, each reflector went through a rigorous refinement process before it was ready to mount on the telescope. This flawless formation process was critical for Webb, which will use the mirrors to peer far back in time to capture the light from the first stars and galaxies.
Mission Duration
Webb's mission lifetime after launch is designed to be at least 5-1/2 years, and could last longer than 10 years. The lifetime is limited by the amount of fuel used for maintaining the orbit, and by the possibility that Webb’s components will degrade over time in the harsh environment of space.
James Webb's Mission
The James Webb Space Telescope will be a giant leap forward in our quest to understand the Universe and our origins. Webb will examine every phase of cosmic history: from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang to the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets to the evolution of our own solar system.
Early Universe
Galaxies Over Time
Star Lifecycle
Other Worlds
Webb's unprecedented infrared sensitivity will help astronomers to compare the faintest, earliest galaxies to today's grand spirals and ellipticals, helping us to understand how galaxies assemble over billions of years.
Webb will be able to see right through and into massive clouds of dust that are opaque to visible-light observatories like Hubble, where stars and planetary systems are being born.
Webb will tell us more about the atmospheres of extrasolar planets, and perhaps even find the building blocks of life elsewhere in the universe. In addition to other planetary systems, Webb will also study objects within our own Solar System.
Webb will be a powerful time machine with infrared vision that will peer back over 13.5 billion years to see the first stars and galaxies forming out of the darkness of the early universe.
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What will happen to Hubble Space Telescope?
Hubble team members aim to keep the telescope going through, so its operations will overlap with those of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is due to launch in 2018. JWST is optimized to view the cosmos in infrared light, while Hubble sees more in the visible and ultraviolet wavelengths. Using both space telescopes in tandem "really gives you a more panchromatic view of the universe than you would get just from Hubble alone, or just from Webb alone,".
James Webb Space Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope (sometimes called JWST or Webb) is an orbiting infrared observatory that will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, with longer wavelength coverage and greatly improved sensitivity. The longer wavelengths enable Webb to look much closer to the beginning of time and to hunt for the unobserved formation of the first galaxies, as well as to look inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming today.
Black Hole for Taxpayer Money?
At first, the project was estimated to cost only $500 million, but extensive revaluation pushed the completion date back and the price tag up. Today, the James Webb Space Telescope’s budget exceeds $10 billion, and the project has essentially eaten astronomy. Despite its bloated budget, NASA has failed to launch this replacement in the 20-plus years since President George H. W. Bush left office. Recently news came out that the JWST will remain on Earth until at least 2022.
Webbs's Instruments
The James Webb Space Telescope includes four scientific instruments:
The Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) is Webb's primary imager that will cover the infrared wavelength range 0.6 to 5 microns. NIRCam will detect light from: the earliest stars and galaxies in the process of formation, the population of stars in nearby galaxies, as well as young stars in the Milky Way and Kuiper Belt objects. NIRCam is equipped with coronagraphs, instruments that allow astronomers to take pictures of very faint objects around a central bright object, like stellar systems. NIRCam's coronagraphs work by blocking a brighter object's light, making it possible to view the dimmer object nearby. With the coronagraphs, astronomers hope to determine the characteristics of planets orbiting nearby stars.
The Near InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRSpec) will operate over a wavelength range of 0.6 to 5 microns. A spectrograph (also sometimes called a spectrometer) is used to disperse light from an object into a spectrum. Analyzing the spectrum of an object can tell us about its physical properties, including temperature, mass, and chemical composition. The atoms and molecules in the object actually imprint lines on its spectrum that uniquely fingerprint each chemical element present and can reveal a wealth of information about physical conditions in the object.
The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) has both a camera and a spectrograph that sees light in the mid-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum, with wavelengths that are longer than our eyes see. MIRI covers the wavelength range of 5 to 28 microns. Its sensitive detectors will allow it to see the redshifted light of distant galaxies, newly forming stars, and faintly visible comets as well as objects in the Kuiper Belt. MIRI's camera will provide wide-field, broadband imaging that will continue the breathtaking astrophotography that has made Hubble so universally admired.
The Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) allows Webb to point precisely, so that it can obtain high-quality images. The Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph part of the FGS/NIRISS will be used to investigate the following science objectives: first light detection, exoplanet detection and characterization, and exoplanet transit spectroscopy. FGS/NIRISS has a wavelength range of 0.8 to 5.0 microns, and is a specialized instrument with three main modes, each of which addresses a separate wavelength range. FGS is a "guider," which helps point the telescope.