14/09/2021
๐๐ก๐ ๐๐๐ฆ๐๐ฌ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ฅ๐๐ฌ๐๐จ๐ฉ๐, humanityโs next big space-bound eye on the cosmos, has a new launch date of December 18th, NASA announced on Wednesday. Itโs the latest among dozens of other delays for a telescope that was originally planned to go to space as early as 2007.
The $8.8 billion observatory, named after NASAโs second administrator, is a tennis court-sized successor to NASAโs famed Hubble telescope. Its 18 hexagonal gold-plated mirrors will allow the spacecraft to view distant planets and the far reaches of the universe with a level of detail that far surpasses Hubbleโs capabilities.
Astronomers have been looking forward to the telescopeโs launch for years, but its development has been set back by years of delays, development challenges, and cost overruns. NASA and Northrop Grumman, the telescopeโs prime contractor, initially set a $1 billion budget for James Webb and a launch date for sometime in 2007. By 2011, the launch date had slipped to 2018, but that was pushed ever further, with development accidents driving up costs. Early last year, NASAโs inspector general foresaw delays due to a handful of technical challenges. And the pandemic added more delays last year, pushing the launch date to October 31st.
The latest delay had nothing to do with the telescope. The Ariane 5 rocket James Webb will launch on was effectively grounded for nearly a year due to problems with its payload fairings that were detected in two separate commercial missions in 2020. The rocket successfully launched a batch of satellites in July. In the same month, the European Space Agency โ NASAโs partner on the telescope โ signed off on James Webbโs new launch plan in a key review that showed โpositive resultsโ during technical evaluations, the agency said at the time.
NASA said the new date was set in consultation with Arianespace, the French company whose Ariane 5 rocket will send James Webb to space from a launch site in Kourou, French Guiana managed by the European Space Agency (ESA). The observatory, a joint project between NASA, ESA, and the Canadian space agency, wrapped up final tests late last month, and now itโs undergoing shipment operations. Engineers will enclose the spacecraft in a custom (and very expensive) shipping container before itโs sent to Kourou.
While it finally has a new launch date to space, the exact timing of when the spacecraft sets sail to South America is still being kept under wraps as a security precaution.
Source: theverge