Science Newsroom, December 15 (EFE) .- The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scheduled for December 22, has been delayed by at least two days, so this observatory, considered Hubble’s successor, will not will not be sent to space until Friday, December 24.
The new delay is due to a communication problem between the observatory and the launcher system, according to the website of the United States Space Agency (NASA), which hopes to be able to provide new information about the launch before December 17.
The James Webb Space Telescope, named after a former NASA administrator, will be the world’s largest space science observatory when launched, capable of studying previously inaccessible worlds and exploring the origins of our solar system.
This joint mission of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency will be launched into space from the European spaceport of French Guiana aboard an Ariane 5 rocket on which the telescope has been fixed this weekend.
The launch of the telescope, which was originally scheduled to enter orbit in the spring of 2019, has been delayed at least three more times.
The new delay was confirmed today at a press conference by some of the main ESA scientists participating in the mission and who preferred not to expand on the subject so as not to give rise to speculation. .
Catarina Alves de Oliveira, ESA scientist for Webb’s NIRSpec instrument, explained that the telescope has been tested for a long time and a lot of testing has been done to make sure everything is going well from launch to deployment already. in orbit.
“There are some very critical and ambitious parts to the whole process” but the James Webb “is ready” to deploy into space and later when it is in orbit, “we are going to take it very slowly, without taking any risks.We are always going to stop before each big step to make sure that everything is going well and that we will be in constant communication with him.
And, although the team has rigorously tested the telescope, when it separates from the rocket and begins its journey to the orbit it will operate in for the next several years, the James Webb will go through a complex process to deploy. in several steps and release the sun visor. , the antenna and the instruments with which it is equipped.
“It’s a very proven process that we will all be very much aware of,” said Macarena García Marín, ESA Scientist for MIRI / JWST Scientific Development and Support and Calibration.
When it starts working, the telescope will take part of its observations outside the solar system. Exoplanets, for example, will be one of the pillars of this mission, explained Alves de Oliveira.
“In the first year of observations, the Webb – which has received more than a thousand research proposals from scientific teams around the world – will devote 20 to 25% of the observation time to studying 60 or 70 exoplanets.
“We want to know what they are made of, what they have in the atmosphere and for that Webb will allow us to make very precise observations that will help us to know what structure and what molecules are on these planets, and what not. is that the first year, ”he stressed.
Within the solar system, the telescope will study planets beyond Earth, such as gas giants and icy planets, but more importantly it will focus a lot on observing the atmospheres and structure of these planets. “Webb will give us the details,” said Macarena García Marín, ESA scientist for scientific development and support and calibration of MIRI / JWST.
Of course, compared to Hubble, the new telescope has a downside – it can’t be repaired, in fact, it wasn’t even designed for that, ESA scientists explained.
However, all electronic systems have redundancies called “A-side and B-side,” Macarena García pointed out, so that “whenever there is an anomaly, we can deal with it by going to the B-side, which ensures that you can continue to use the instruments. “.
(c) EFE Agency
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