Fuss again with the James Webb Telescope

Now it seems one of life’s few facts: The launch of NASA’s future masterpiece and current concern, the James Webb Space Telescope, has been rescheduled once again. This time from December 18 to 22, 2021, due to an accident this week while Webb was putting on the adapter to connect the telescope to the Ariane 5 strike. A strap to secure the telescope to this adapter broke off, causing a shock through the telescope.

You can’t be too careful with a nine billion euro telescope. So NASA had to run extensive testing to make sure the glitch didn’t cause any damage, hence the delay. Fortunately, everything is fine The space agency confirmed Wednesday.

The next step is to refuel the telescope. Webb uses this fuel to maintain his orbit and aim for the right points. This is it The most dangerous operation during construction. It takes ten days, but the fuel supply should be enough for thirteen years.

Four times expensive

This incident is in a long tradition of delays and problems with this space telescope. Webb has been in development for decades, in cooperation with European and Canadian space agencies, and was supposed to launch as early as 2011. NASA would build the telescope for “only” $1.6 billion, more than four times as much. Also about the project name is Lots of discussion Done: More than 1,200 astronomers have signed a petition for a name change, saying they consider former NASA Administrator James Webb a homophobic.

NASA is now confident that the launch will indeed occur on December 22. Since then, the James Webb Telescope will become the primary space telescope and successor to Hubble. Nothing should go wrong after launch. Because while Hubble hovers close to Earth and has been repaired multiple times in space by astronauts, that would be impossible on Webb, because it would be so far away. The new telescope will be able to look into the past more than ever before. Because Webb can see infrared, while Hubble uses optical and ultraviolet light. NASA expects that this will allow Webb to study the formation of the first galaxies in the universe.