/i/2004845656.png?fit=%2C&ssl=1 "ESA successfully launches James Webb Space Telescope – IT Pro – News")
ESA successfully launched the Ariane 5 rocket containing the James Webb Space Telescope at 1.20 pm Dutch time. All important steps after the launch have been completed. The exciting phase for the telescope now begins, in which the necessary parts have to unfold.
The launch was performed by Arianespace from the Kourou launch site in French Guiana, in overcast conditions. The 32-minute launch window started at 13:20 Dutch time. At that exact moment, the two solid rocket motors and the cryogenic main rocket engine of the first stage were ignited and Ariane 5 took to the skies. Two minutes and twenty seconds after detaching from the launch pad, the two fixed rocket boosters were jettisoned and about forty seconds after that, the fairing or nosecone dropped, revealing the collapsed telescope.
Then, almost nine minutes after launch, it was main engine cut offmoment and the first rocket stage was disconnected. After that moment a phase started in which a special, so-called barbecue-rolmanoeuvre performed, which is sometimes compared to rocking a baby. This is done to protect the telescope from the sun’s radiation during this phase of its trajectory. At 25 minutes after launch, the second stage rocket motor was turned off. And 27 minutes after launch, the spacecraft came off the second stage. This puts James Webb in a direct trajectory towards his destination; the telescope does not orbit the earth first.
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The James Webb telescope will now take a month to arrive at its destination: the second Lagrange point at 1.5 million kilometers. The space telescope there will revolve around the sun at the same rhythm as the earth. Because from that point the earth, sun and moon are at the same point, the telescope can very well block all that radiation with its sun shield. That is very important, because the various scientific instruments have to operate between -233 and -266 degrees Celsius. Before James Webb arrives at L2, the necessary critical steps must be completed, such as unfolding the solar panels, the solar shield and the primary mirror. In particular, unfolding the shield and positioning the eighteen hexagons of the mirror are nail-biting moments where nothing should go wrong.
Tweakers recently published four articles about James Webb, in which the general wallpapers, the NIRSpec spectrograph, the mid-infrared instrument in the importance of data reduction were discussed. There is also another backstory in particular zooming in on the distinguishing factor of the James Webb telescope from Hubble, namely the focus on the infrared part of the spectrum. With this, the telescope will detect light from the first generation of galaxies, which formed shortly after the Big Bang. In addition, James Webb will also play an important role in studying the composition of atmospheres of discovered exoplanets and the telescope can also see through dust clouds much better than Hubble to see stars and possible planets.
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