A small update on the $10 billion James Web Space Telescope’s scheduled launch date came out of NASA on Monday, and it’s not exactly heartbreaking information.
The “earlier” launch date for the larger space telescope will be December 18th to at least December 22nd, after which an “incident” occurred during processing operations at the launch pad in Crowe, French Guiana. It is there that the telescope will be launched on the Ariane 5 rocket provided by the European Space Agency.
“Technicians are preparing to combine heat with a missile vehicle adapter used to integrate the lab with the top of the Ariane 5 rocket,” NASA said. Said in a blog post. “The sudden and unplanned launch of the attachment strip – which protects the web launch vehicle adapter – resonated throughout the watchtower.”
To be honest, words like “incident”, “sudden” and “vibration” are not expressions we would like to hear about handling a sophisticated and almost irreplaceable instrument like a web telescope. However, NASA, the European Space Agency and the rocket operator Arianespace have plans to move forward.
NASA is investigating an anomaly review team and conducting further tests to confirm that the incident did not damage any part of the telescope. NASA has announced that it will provide an update when testing is complete this weekend. A senior source at the space agency said the test was running ahead of schedule and that the December 22 launch date would be pushed back if some serious problems weren’t identified.
Any setbacks that occur now in Webb’s progress toward release are particularly painful, as getting to that point is a long, long way to go. NASA’s tracking device for the Hubble Space Telescope was launched a decade ago at a cost of $1 billion. Since then, technical problems and delays have destroyed the complex telescope.
The web is difficult to create because its 6.5 meters of glass has to expand on its own when it reaches orbit 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. This is a very complex process and there are over 300 unique points in the monitoring center. NASA has difficulty testing everything on Earth under conditions that reflect the temperature, pressure and microgravity of deep space.
Thomas Surbuchen, NASA’s chief science officer, said it’s important for NASA to make sure the telescope is in good condition before it launches on Monday. “I hope the team does everything they can to prepare the heat to explore our universe’s past,” he wrote. No Twitter. “Of course this change is worth waiting for.”
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