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James Webb Space Telescope launch media kit [pdf]
- buryat 5y agowhere’s the interactive version?
- ugh123 5y agoSlide/page 3 has clickable icons to take you to those pages. I guess thats what they mean by "interactive".
- zymhan 5y agoOh wow, I didn't realize those were links, looks like there are a handful scattered around. Most of them can't be found unless you hover your cursor over the box, which is less than ideal to say the least.
- stohk 5y agoThis is the interactive version. Almost every page has links you can click to watch videos and read more about a topic.
- lapetitejort 5y agoInteresting! I didn't know the telescope started to unfold en route to L2. I thought it would start unfolding after reaching L2. Are there any significant acceleration events needed to enter L2, one that might add stress to the unfolded sections?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- IntrepidWorm 5y agoI would assume these are well known concerns to the Webb team: if they are planning to begin unpacking prior to reaching L2, it must be because the forces involved with finalizing the orbit are well within the tolerances of the fully expanded craft. They would not risk damage to the telescope if the processes involved weren't already rigorously tested and safe. There's a lot of eyes and quite a lot of money riding on this project.
- aero-glide2 5y agoOkay that doesn't really answer the question
- krisoft 5y ago“A trajectory can be fashioned so that JWST ‘falls into orbit’ about L2 rather than having to forcibly inject itself into a set orbit using its propulsion subsystem; this saves propellant and makes for simpler orbit maintenance.” Quote from the JWST’s user documentation: https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-observatory-hardware/jwst-orbit https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-observatory-hardware/jwst-o... So no significant acceleration event is expected as they enter an orbit around L2. Furthermore they will have to keep doing orbit maintenance burns every 21 day while there, so they must have designed the structure with that in mind.
- krisoft 5y agoFound an even better source! https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20140008868/downloads/20140008868.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20140008868/downloads/20... This paper discussed the Monte Carlo method they implemented to plan and control the orbital insertion. At page 16 they discuss nominal burn times. The MCC-2 burn has an associated deltaV of 0.712m/s. (That is the first of many burns which happen in the unfolded state) Of course the real value will depend on how accurate the previous burns happens to be, but it provides a rough estimate of what we can expect.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mcdonje 5y agoI wonder how many years worth of fuel they have to maintain orbit, and what happens when orbit fails. Does it settle into the L point instead of orbiting it? Does it fly off?
- zardo 5y agoIt's like a hilltop, without propellent to keep it near L2 it will roll off into solar orbit.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- gregsadetsky 5y agoThis is also interesting — "FAQ For Scientists": https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/forScientists/faqScientists.html https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/forScientists/faqScientists.ht...
- kloch 5y agoStrangely, observing the universe curving back on itself is not listed.. j/k
- gregsadetsky 5y agoHey, your https://bsrender.io/ https://bsrender.io/ is really really awesome! The very large generated images are mind boggling.
- kloch 5y agoThanks! I'm a total amateur (coder && astronomer) but I'm having a lot of fun with it. I started it because I wanted to see what the galaxy looked like from outside perspectives. Unfortunately the uncertainty (noise) in the Gaia parallax data makes things look weird as soon as you move the camera a short distance from the sun.
- jp42 5y agoI really really really hope JWST successfully launches and deploys. It's been almost 3 decades, countless people worked on it and billions of dollars are invested in this project. Not to mention how much it will improve our understanding of the universe. Fingers crossed.
- AdamJacobMuller 5y agoWhile I agree on an emotional level that this would be a tragedy if it fails I have serious concerns about the fact that we've invested so much in this one instrument. I wonder, if the launch or the satellite was to fail would we end up firmly accepting that this was a bad idea and instead of spending 10 billion on 1 really amazing telescope we should have spent 1 billion on 10 telescopes of 500m on 20 telescopes. I definitely don't want the JWST to fail. I've never seen an image which endears such an existential crisis as the hubble deep field. I simply, paradoxically, wonder what good might come if this does fail.
- holler 5y agoI feel the same way, and I'm reminded of a quote from Elon Musk recently when discussing Starship's Raptor engine: "It's 10-100x more difficult to design the production system than the engine itself" So what we really need is to invest and innovate in the production of complex telescopes/probes/etc such that it doesn't cost $10 Billion and 20 years to build, and the loss of one wouldn't hinder the overall production. https://youtu.be/t705r8ICkRw?t=238 https://youtu.be/t705r8ICkRw?t=238
- stopping 5y agoThe cost doesn't come from a lack of production efficiency. A significant fraction of the cost is for testing/validation of the spacecraft, which must be done for every unit you produce. Simulating operating conditions on Earth is extremely expensive and time consuming.
- aero-glide2 5y ago
- tppiotrowski 5y ago“Webb observes near infrared to mid infrared light” Interesting. I thought all the fuss was because it would be in the visible spectrum (i.e. nice magazine photos and desktop backgrounds) Disclaimer: I know very little about astrophotography
- beecafe 5y agoAlmost all colour astrophotographs you see are made up of a composite of many bands, like UV, IR, X-ray, etc (and visible), with colours mapped to the different wavelengths. The instruments collect many wavelengths because it allows us to see through certain things, as well as recognise certain elements and phenomena from their spectrum.
- op00to 5y agoJinx!
- op00to 5y agoAlmost all images you see from space probes are false color - they approximate what it might look like or what might look pleasing to the human eye. There will be plenty of awesome images coming out of this bad boy.
- kloch 5y agoThis would be a good quick hack project-- a program that accurately blueshifts JWST images.
- redisman 5y agoOh neat a picture of nothing
- sbierwagen 5y agoYou can see the list of NIRCam filters here: http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/nircam/in_filters.php#wavelength http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/nircam/in_filters.php#wavelen... Only F070W is partly human-visible, everything else is off into infrared, as you'd expect.
- echelon 5y agoWe're so far along now that this must mean the attempts to cancel James Webb and get the name changed failed. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27930924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27930924 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02010-x https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02010-x
- aero-glide2 5y agoCan this detect planet 9? It's supposed to be more easily seen with infrared.
- stan_rogers 5y agoMaybe, if it exists. Remember that it's only hypothetical, even if that hypothesis is a well-founded one.
- neuronic 5y agoIt would be so crazy to discover another planet in the solar system after all these years... space is vast and dark.
- areoform 5y agoI find that a sense of scale is important to appreciate the Webb. Here are some of my favorite photos, https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/thumbnails/image/jwst_people.jpg https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/p... One of the taller people in there is 6'4. :) Here's one with a human for scale standing near the mirror, https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1586/26602405532_980d7f8d4e_b.jpg https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1586/26602405532_980d7f8d4e_b.... With the folded assembly, https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/50268583177/in/album-72157711864057113/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/50268583177/... The JWST going in for testing, https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/25003831358/in/album-72157711864057113/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/25003831358/... With the sun-shield unfurled, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshield_(JWST)#/media/File:James_Webb_telescope_sunshield.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshield_(JWST)#/media/File:J...
- marcodiego 5y agoIt is important to remember that the sunshade teared during a test: https://www.inverse.com/article/42894-sunshield-rips-keep-james-webb-telescope-grounded https://www.inverse.com/article/42894-sunshield-rips-keep-ja... and a small detail like that, fibers from the sunshade, affected another space telescope mission, ESA's GAIA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_(spacecraft)#Stray_light_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_(spacecraft)#Stray_light_... Putting this instrument operational at the right place is probably an unprecedented mission in terms of automated complexity.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- google234123 5y agoReally well done.
- chrononaut 5y agoPerhaps I missed it in the launch kit, but here's a link to the first cycle of approved proposals for time on the telescope, in case you're interested: https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-programs/cycle-1-go https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-progra... > STScI announces the selected JWST General Observer programs for Cycle 1. This follows the review of submitted proposals by the JWST Telescope Allocation Committee, which made recommendations to the STScI Director, who approved the final selection. The selection is scientifically balanced, with a distribution of science categories that broadly matches the submitted proposals. More detailed information about the approved proposals is now available. > The Cycle 1 GO program includes 266 proposals for approximately 6,000 hours of JWST prime time and up to 1,231 hours of parallel time, as well as 15 archival and 5 theory proposals. This milestone completes the definition of the first year of JWST science, as envisioned by a broad, worldwide community of observers. The selected proposals were prepared by more than 2,200 unique investigators from 41 countries, including 43 US states and territories, 19 ESA member states, and 4 Canadian provinces.
- xpressvideoz 5y agoI didn't know it was possible to make a PDF file clickable. But thinking it again, the TOCs of PDF files have always been clickable, so I should have assumed that there were also other uses.
- petschge 5y agoActually pretty easy to do with latex and hyperref. Has been fairly standard for scientific preprints on arxiv for a decade or more.
- InTheArena 5y agoIt's also interesting to see that James Webb the administrator who took nasa from NACA to the moon is getting some attention. At the end of the day, he made the moon program work, and was made a political scapegoat at the end of it. I think that people are also going to look at the transformation that NASA went under the last 4 years, with the rise of SpaceX, and think that this was the second most disruptive time. In both cases, the administration was run by a administrator, not a scientist.
- anonymousiam 5y agoGlad to see it's actually (finally) close to launch. I got a chance to see it in the factory (NG) a few years ago.
- 29athrowaway 5y agoHopefully ESA doesn't mess up like they did with the Schiaparelli EDM lander.
- sydthrowaway 5y agoWill the JWST downlink be unencrypted?
- Denvercoder9 5y agoThe plan is to use the big dishes of the Deep Space Network to receive the signals, so regardless of encryption, you're probably not going to be able to receive its signals.
- zaarn 5y agoMost likely, but you'll need to find a 23GHz receiver with an insanely low SNR and a very good dish to receive properly.
- DesiLurker 5y agoChina could.
- andruby 5y agoIs there a target date for the launch? The Ariane 5 timeline mentions 2021, but nothing more specific. When will it be shipped to French Guiana?
- andruby 5y agoIn July, NASA said they are targeting the launch for Oct 31, 2021. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-announces-new-james-webb-space-telescope-target-launch-date https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-announces-new-james-...
- dirtyid 5y agoSometimes, I wish there was an anti-spoiler extension to block JWST until it either succeeds or fails to deploy. Headline of this project has been a reoccuring source of mild anxiety for almost a decade.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- twic 5y agoI was a little surprised (but, as a European, chuffed!) that this is launching on Ariane 5. I would have thought that Falcon 9 would be cheaper, and Atlas V would be preferred as a way of keeping it in-house. I believe they both have the capacity needed. Maybe Falcon 9 wasn't sufficiently proven when the deal was done, and Atlas V was more expensive?
- izacus 5y agoESA launching their satellite on their own launch platform and on their own launch pad isn't really all that surprising, is it?
- twic 5y agoIn my head, JWST was a NASA project (James Webb was an early director of NASA, during its formative years). I had completely blanked the fact that it's an international project, sorry!
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoAriane 5 has a really good track record, with no failed launches since the early 2000's and only a partial failure in 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5#Launch_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5#Launch_statistics
- Denvercoder9 5y agoThe two launches in 2020 saw excessive vibrations on the payload after fairing separation though, which would be pretty terrible for JWST.