5 ms·

Decades of meticulous planning and they couldn't give their teams a day off on Christmas? Of course it could be that consensus was this beats any other kind of

Decades of meticulous planning and they couldn't give their teams a day off on Christmas? Of course it could be that consensus was this beats any other kind of activity that day in which case fair enough. :-)

_ph_ 5y ago
Well, according to the original planning it should have launched before Christmas. It was only the weather delaying it by one day. I guess once they were ready for the launch, they want to avoid to delay it any longer than needed. Not sure, how long the rocket can be "stored" in launch-ready state before it has to be serviced again.
sp332 5y ago
It was scheduled for Wednesday and then postponed for bad weather.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jpgvm 5y ago
I think spending Christmas wringing your hands unsure if your $10B decades-in-development baby is going to make it to orbit sounds incredibly stressful... It's going to be awesome for us to watch but I feel for all the folks that worked on this.
- ajross 5y ago
  FWIW: given the extraordinarily complicated mechanical design, merely reaching orbit is the "easy part". The real imagined disasters won't happen until the mirrors assemble.
  - mortenjorck 5y ago
    True, though it’s also worth considering that Webb is going far beyond “orbit“ as we generally think of it. I don’t know how much has been launched all the way out to L2 before, but it’s probably an order of magnitude less than what’s in Earth orbit.
    - ajross 5y ago
      Meh, but there's nothing to hit in space. The energy required to reach a routine geosynchronous orbit is already ~85% of escape velocity. The added boost is minimally more dangerous and the trip is just empty hours. "Time" does kill spacecraft, but not often. The Webb self-assembly is absolutely where the scary bits lurk.
      - jpgvm 5y ago
        Yeah valid. Though the whole "hurtling upwards on top of a bomb" part is still definitely scary in it's own right.
        argiopetech 5y ago
        Particularly given the launch record of the Ariane 5 platform. I did some quick research, and no modern launch platform has as high a mission failure rate (4.5%.) The Delta family comes close at 4.4%, but that's a 50yr launch history. The Delta 4 iteration has had no failures.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        As I wrote elsewhere, the bulk of those failures were in the first 15 launches, after that it was a very long string of one success after another with one partial failure in 2018.
    - krisoft 5y ago
      > I don’t know how much has been launched all the way out to L2 before... There is a handy list on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_objects_at_Lagrange_points#L2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_objects_at_Lagrange_po... Your intuition is quite right, there is way less satellites parked around L2 than in low earth orbit for example. But that doesn't really pose too big of a challenges in itself. It is of course far, both distance wise and energetically. The main complication often mentioned is if something is wrong with the telescope it makes it very unlikely that a crew can visit it to fix it. The way for example how they repaired Hubble is unlikely to happen with Webb.
  - Symmetry 5y ago
    The Ariane 5 is batting 106 for 111 which is pretty good odds and perfectly respectable for a heavy lift vehicle... but not so much so that I don't wish it was launching on an Atlas 5 instead.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Four of those were in the first 15, the last recent one was in 2018, and was a partial failure.
    - GuB-42 5y ago
      Ariane 5 had some early problems, the first failure even became a case study in critical software development. But it had only had one partial failure after the 17th launch: the payload was launched to the wrong orbit because the wrong coordinates were put in the computer. A huge QA problem but not the fault of the launcher which did exactly as told. Now, both Ariane 5 and Atlas 5 are extremely reliable, mature rockets.
furyofantares 5y ago
Newton's birthday sounds like the perfect day for a rocket launch to me
- kibwen 5y ago
  Since Isaac Newton was actually born extremely prematurely, at less than 30 weeks of pregnancy, maybe he was the one rushing to match the date of the JWST launch. :P
- makira 5y ago
  He was born January 4th, using modern calendars. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isaac-Newton https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isaac-Newton
  - furyofantares 5y ago
    Oh cool, I get to celebrate his birthday twice per year now. That said, strangely enough, if the calendar changed after my death and people were still celebrating my birthday, I'd expect people to celebrate the day on the calendar I used rather than the accurate day.
malermeister 5y ago
Lots of European countries celebrate Christmas Evening (Dec 24) more than Christmas Day (Dec 25).
- Ostrogodsky 5y ago
  Yeah, 25th is the day to nurse the hangover
- CoastalCoder 5y ago
  I wish for our Canadian friends that the telescope unfurls on Boxing Day.
jacquesm 5y ago
If you start planning your rocket launches around religious holidays then that is going to be a bit of a problem, there are just too many of them: https://nationaltoday.com/religious-holidays/ https://nationaltoday.com/religious-holidays/
- rrss 5y ago
  How about planning around the single most celebrated holiday in the US, religious or not: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_the_Unite...
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Ariane 5 is a European effort, not a US effort, it will launch from French Guyana, not from the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5
    - rrss 5y ago
      Cool. Webb will be monitored and operated by NASA in Maryland. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#Time,_budget https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#T... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Telescope_Science_Institute https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Telescope_Science_Inst...
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        I really don't get your fixation about this: the people involved are all most likely extremely happy to see their creation fly and to have Christmas take a backseat to that. Let's just hope it all goes well, this is one of the most complex space endeavors we've ever tried, and if it fails it will have many negative long term implications.
        rrss 5y ago
        I did not get your real or feigned ignorance that Christmas is a much more significant holiday to the vast majority of the people involved than the Feast of the Ass. I also hope all goes well. Cheers.

_ph_ 5y ago

Well, according to the original planning it should have launched before Christmas. It was only the weather delaying it by one day. I guess once they were ready for the launch, they want to avoid to delay it any longer than needed. Not sure, how long the rocket can be "stored" in launch-ready state before it has to be serviced again.

sp332 5y ago

It was scheduled for Wednesday and then postponed for bad weather.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jpgvm 5y ago

I think spending Christmas wringing your hands unsure if your $10B decades-in-development baby is going to make it to orbit sounds incredibly stressful... It's going to be awesome for us to watch but I feel for all the folks that worked on this.

ajross 5y ago
FWIW: given the extraordinarily complicated mechanical design, merely reaching orbit is the "easy part". The real imagined disasters won't happen until the mirrors assemble.
- mortenjorck 5y ago
  True, though it’s also worth considering that Webb is going far beyond “orbit“ as we generally think of it. I don’t know how much has been launched all the way out to L2 before, but it’s probably an order of magnitude less than what’s in Earth orbit.
  - ajross 5y ago
    Meh, but there's nothing to hit in space. The energy required to reach a routine geosynchronous orbit is already ~85% of escape velocity. The added boost is minimally more dangerous and the trip is just empty hours. "Time" does kill spacecraft, but not often. The Webb self-assembly is absolutely where the scary bits lurk.
    - jpgvm 5y ago
      Yeah valid. Though the whole "hurtling upwards on top of a bomb" part is still definitely scary in it's own right.
      - argiopetech 5y ago
        Particularly given the launch record of the Ariane 5 platform. I did some quick research, and no modern launch platform has as high a mission failure rate (4.5%.) The Delta family comes close at 4.4%, but that's a 50yr launch history. The Delta 4 iteration has had no failures.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        As I wrote elsewhere, the bulk of those failures were in the first 15 launches, after that it was a very long string of one success after another with one partial failure in 2018.
  - krisoft 5y ago
    > I don’t know how much has been launched all the way out to L2 before... There is a handy list on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_objects_at_Lagrange_points#L2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_objects_at_Lagrange_po... Your intuition is quite right, there is way less satellites parked around L2 than in low earth orbit for example. But that doesn't really pose too big of a challenges in itself. It is of course far, both distance wise and energetically. The main complication often mentioned is if something is wrong with the telescope it makes it very unlikely that a crew can visit it to fix it. The way for example how they repaired Hubble is unlikely to happen with Webb.
- Symmetry 5y ago
  The Ariane 5 is batting 106 for 111 which is pretty good odds and perfectly respectable for a heavy lift vehicle... but not so much so that I don't wish it was launching on an Atlas 5 instead.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Four of those were in the first 15, the last recent one was in 2018, and was a partial failure.
  - GuB-42 5y ago
    Ariane 5 had some early problems, the first failure even became a case study in critical software development. But it had only had one partial failure after the 17th launch: the payload was launched to the wrong orbit because the wrong coordinates were put in the computer. A huge QA problem but not the fault of the launcher which did exactly as told. Now, both Ariane 5 and Atlas 5 are extremely reliable, mature rockets.

furyofantares 5y ago

Newton's birthday sounds like the perfect day for a rocket launch to me

kibwen 5y ago
Since Isaac Newton was actually born extremely prematurely, at less than 30 weeks of pregnancy, maybe he was the one rushing to match the date of the JWST launch. :P
makira 5y ago
He was born January 4th, using modern calendars. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isaac-Newton https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isaac-Newton
- furyofantares 5y ago
  Oh cool, I get to celebrate his birthday twice per year now. That said, strangely enough, if the calendar changed after my death and people were still celebrating my birthday, I'd expect people to celebrate the day on the calendar I used rather than the accurate day.

malermeister 5y ago

Lots of European countries celebrate Christmas Evening (Dec 24) more than Christmas Day (Dec 25).

Ostrogodsky 5y ago
Yeah, 25th is the day to nurse the hangover
CoastalCoder 5y ago
I wish for our Canadian friends that the telescope unfurls on Boxing Day.

jacquesm 5y ago

If you start planning your rocket launches around religious holidays then that is going to be a bit of a problem, there are just too many of them: https://nationaltoday.com/religious-holidays/ https://nationaltoday.com/religious-holidays/

rrss 5y ago
How about planning around the single most celebrated holiday in the US, religious or not: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_the_Unite...
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Ariane 5 is a European effort, not a US effort, it will launch from French Guyana, not from the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5
  - rrss 5y ago
    Cool. Webb will be monitored and operated by NASA in Maryland. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#Time,_budget https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#T... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Telescope_Science_Institute https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Telescope_Science_Inst...
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      I really don't get your fixation about this: the people involved are all most likely extremely happy to see their creation fly and to have Christmas take a backseat to that. Let's just hope it all goes well, this is one of the most complex space endeavors we've ever tried, and if it fails it will have many negative long term implications.
      - rrss 5y ago
        I did not get your real or feigned ignorance that Christmas is a much more significant holiday to the vast majority of the people involved than the Feast of the Ass. I also hope all goes well. Cheers.