NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope To Be Inserted into Orbit Around the Sun on Jan. 25
By NASA // January 21, 2022
NASA & SPACE NEWS
(NASA) – Scientists and engineers operating NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will fire Webb’s thrusters at 2 p.m. Monday, Jan. 24 to insert the space telescope into orbit around the Sun at the second Lagrange point, or L2, its intended destination, nearly 1 million miles from Earth.
This mid-course correction burn has long been planned for approximately 29 days after launch. This week, the mission operations team selected the target date and time for the burn.
Engineers also finished remotely moving Webb’s mirror segments out of their launch positions to begin the months-long process of aligning the telescope’s optics.
Webb, an international partnership with the ESA and the Canadian Space Agency, launched Dec. 25 from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
On Jan. 8, Webb finished unfolding in space after having been stowed inside the nose cone of an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket for launch.
The observatory is now preparing for science operations, a human-controlled process called commissioning that provides the team with the flexibility to pause and adjust as needed.
NASA provides regular updates about commissioning milestones on the Webb telescope blog. The public also can follow Webb’s progress online via a “Where is Webb?” interactive tracker.
Webb will explore every phase of cosmic history – from within the solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe, and everything in between.
Webb will reveal new and unexpected discoveries and help humanity understand the origins of the universe and our place in it.
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