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I'm surprised that JWST isn't actually all that much bulkier than Hubble, despite the mirror(s) being so much larger. In retrospect I guess that makes sense, s
by elihu 5y ago
I'm surprised that JWST isn't actually all that much bulkier than Hubble, despite the mirror(s) being so much larger. In retrospect I guess that makes sense, since much of Hubble's bulk is the long tube enclosing the mirror, which JWST lacks. Also, the size of things that can be reasonably launched into space is limited by the launch vehicles themselves. (Maybe NASA would have built it bigger if they knew exactly the launch vehicle specs that would be available at the end of 2021, or they might have waited for Starship, but obviously that couldn't have been predicted when work on JWST began.)
- ehsankia 5y agoThey're mostly limited by the size of the nose that goes on the rocket, which sadly hasn't advanced much in the past few decades. They were able to get a much larger mirror on there using a ton of clever engineering and folding, but the overall structure size is mostly limited by the payload size limit.
- gpt5 5y agoStarship would supposedly fit the unfolded mirror as a single piece. There has been discussion in actually using starship itself as the structure for a future telescope.