Webb Space Telescope Reaches Destination 1 Million Miles From Earth

UPDATE 1/28/22

• The James Webb Space Telescope reached its destination roughly 1 million miles away from Earth earlier this week, where the $10 billion telescope will remain for the duration of its lifecycle as it observes the depths of space.
• The Webb Telescope is at a point known as the second Lagrange point, or L2, which is an orbitally stable point where the telescope will be able to orbit the Sun and remain aligned with Earth by leveraging the gravitational pull of both.
• During its journey over the last 30 days, the Webb Telescope has been gradually deploying its sunshield and other equipment and systems that will allow the most powerful observatory ever launched into space to explore the universe. The sunshield in particular is critical to Webb's ability to function as it will be 185 degrees Fahrenheit on the hot side of the telecope and -388 degrees on the cold side. NASA says the sunshield provides Webb with the equivalent of SPF one million sunscreen.

The original article appears below.

What’s the story?

• The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its partners, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), are planning to launch the James Webb Space Telescope on Saturday morning, marking a major milestone in a project that has been in progress for decades.
• The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the planned successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, which has been in service since 1990. It will be able to observe objects in space that are too old and too distant for Hubble to observe, such as the first galaxies to be formed in the universe, through the use of infrared technologies, in addition to characterizing the atmosphere of potentially habitable planets.
• Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, which is in low Earth orbit at an altitude of 340 miles, the James Webb Space Telescope won’t actually orbit the Earth ― it will orbit the Sun 1 million miles away from Earth. That distance and the telescope’s solar shield will allow it to stay cool enough for the infrared telescope to function properly.
• Named for James E. Webb, who was the administrator of NASA during the Apollo program, the JWST has been developed as a collaboration between NASA, ESA, and CSA since 1996 and has a lifecycle cost of roughly $10 billion. 

How to watch

• The launch is scheduled to occur no earlier than a 32-minute window on Saturday, December 25th, that begins at 7:20 a.m. Eastern time. The launch site is in Kourou, French Guiana.
• A previously scheduled launch time on December 24th was pushed back due to high winds in the forecast, and another postponement could occur if deemed necessary.
• You can watch launch coverage courtesy of NASA on the agency’s website starting at 6 a.m. and on Space.com. 

— Eric Revell

(Photo Credit: NASA - Bill Ingalls via Flickr / Creative Commons)