NASA’s newest flagship observatory is about to begin an incredible journey and now has an official launch date. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson confirmed Friday that the James Webb Space Telescope will attempt to blast off on Dec. 24. from Kourou spaceport on South America’s French Guiana.
Engineers spent Friday completing final checks of all systems, and lastly, encapsulating the orbiting observatory inside the nose cone of its Ariane 5 rocket for the trip.
The James Webb telescope is expected to launch next Friday, December 24, at 7:20 a.m. EST (1220 GMT or 9:20 a.m. local time in French Guiana), according to Space.com.
The US space agency Nasa, which leads the Webb project, and its partner the European Space Agency (ESA), released pictures on Saturday showing the moment of Webb’s encapsulation.
The giant fairing that will protect the telescope as it climbs through the atmosphere was lowered into place with the aid of guide lasers.
“Late yesterday, teams at the launch site successfully completed encapsulation of the observatory inside the Ariane 5 rocket that will launch it to space,” NASA officials wrote in an update today (Dec. 18).
Reason for delays in launch date
The news comes as NASA and Arianespace, builder of the Ariane 5, worked to fix a data cable issue that delayed the mission from a Dec. 22 launch target.
The $10 billion Webb — considered the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope — was supposed to soar Saturday, but was jolted by a clamp during launch preparations, resulting in a four-day delay. Then a bad communication link on the rocket had to be fixed, postponing the launch another two days, reports Fox News.
Nelson expects a smaller crowd for the launch because of the holidays. “Since it’s Christmas Eve, all the congressional delegations that were going down, all of that has evaporated,” he said. “Even the NASA and contractor team has dwindled, but they’ll be there.”
“There’s so much riding on this,” Nelson said, “opening up just all kinds of new understanding and revelations about the universe.”
Taking no chances with the Webb
Thomas Zurbuchen, Nasa’s director of science, said the joint US-European team working on getting Webb ready would continue to be cautious right up to the moment of launch, reports the BBC.
“We’re not taking any risks with Webb,” he told reporters on Thursday. “It’s already risky enough the way it is. We’re absolutely making sure that everything works.”
And the window for a successful launch is only 30 minutes. However, if bad weather or minor technical issues intervene, there are launch opportunities on 25 and 26 December.
But, is there a better Christmas present than seeing the telescope launch on Christmas Eve? Nelson answered by breaking into song: “All I want for Christmas are not my two front teeth, but for the success of JWST,” referring to the telescope by its acronym.
