The James Webb Telescope sends good news: its heat shield opens and it has a good supply of fuel. So it continues quietly on its way to its final orbit.
When operating at full capacity, the James Webb Telescope will be enormous, with a heat shield measuring 12 by 22 metres. It obviously can’t be launched in its entirety, which explains why the weeks following its launch continue to rattle the nerves of operators on the ground, which is when its various parts are laid out. But for now, they have nothing but good news to share.
On its way to its final orbit, 1.4 million kilometers from Earth, the telescope began to open its heat shield without the slightest obstacle. Deployment will be in five distinct phases, and we learned that the first two phases were successful. In practice, this corresponds to the front and rear portions of the sun visor, which means that James Webb is now exposed to his full length. The next steps will be to deploy the left and right units of the heat shield, before separating its different layers. Finally, all of these elements will be stretched to strengthen the whole, increase protection and allow the telescope to reach its maximum size. All this will take another four to five days.
More than 10 years of fuel reserve
The other great news comes from the fuel level analysis, which allows the engines to fine-tune the trajectory to reach the final orbit. The engines that will be used in the long term to keep the satellite in this orbit and direct it during observations. Since James Webb left a certain amount of fuel, it goes without saying that the more economical the first operations, the longer the telescope will be able to operate. After two maneuvers to correct its course, the predictions became more than reassuring: “The telescope will have enough fuel to operate in orbit for more than 10 yearsThe success was attributed in large part to the launch by the Ariane 5 rocket, the accuracy of which during the launch of the James Webb rocket exceeded expectations.
Finally, let us make the mistake of talking about the extension of the base on which the telescope itself is mounted, which also had to rise once into space to provide a wider field of view. The process, which, again, took place without hindrance. To follow the evolution of the telescope, which is now about 700,000 kilometers from Earth, one site: Where is the web.
“Professional food nerd. Internet scholar. Typical bacon buff. Passionate creator.”
