A brief update of the expected launch date for NASA’s $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope was released on Monday, and it’s not a heartwarming message.
The launch date of the Large Space Telescope “Not Before” will be postponed from December 18 to at least December 22 after an “accident” occurred during processing operations at the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana. This is where the telescope will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket provided by the European Space Agency.
Technicians are preparing to connect Webb to the launch vehicle adapter, which is used to integrate the observatory with the top of the Ariane 5 rocket. It says in the blog post. “The sudden and unplanned release of the clamp bar – which attached the Webb to the launch vehicle adapter – caused vibrations throughout the observatory.”
Honestly, words like “accident”, “sudden”, and “shaking” are not the kind of phrases people want to hear about handling an instrument as delicate and nearly as irreplaceable as the Webb telescope. However, NASA, the European Space Agency, and rocket operator Arianespace have plans ahead.
NASA is leading an anomaly review board to investigate and perform additional tests to ensure with certainty that the crash did not damage any part of the telescope. NASA said it will provide an update when testing is complete this weekend. A senior space agency source said that the test is currently progressing ahead of schedule, and that as long as some serious problems have not been identified, the launch date should continue until December 22.
Any setbacks now in Webb’s progress toward launch seem excruciatingly excruciating because getting to this point has been a very long road. NASA’s follow-up instrument to the hugely successful Hubble Space Telescope was originally slated for launch about a decade ago, at a development cost of $1 billion. Since then, technical problems and delays have marred the complex telescope.
Webb’s construction was difficult because his 6.5-metre mirror would need to open on its own once it reached an orbit 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. This is a very complex process, and there are more than 300 individual failure points aboard the observatory. NASA had a hard time testing everything on Earth under conditions that mimic the temperature, pressure, and microgravity of outer space.
NASA’s Head of Science Thomas Zurbuchen said on Monday that it was important for NASA to ensure the safety of the telescope prior to launch. He wrote: “I am confident the team will do everything in their power to prepare Webb to explore our cosmic past.” in twitter. “Sure, this move was worth the wait.”
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