Today, at 2pm EST, Webb fired his onboard thrusters for nearly five minutes (297 seconds) to complete final post-production. course editing in Webb’s orbit. This mid-course correction record has inserted Webb towards its final orbit around Second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L21 million miles away from Earth.
The last mid-lock burn only added about 3.6 mph (1.6 meters per second) – a mere walking pace – to Webb’s pace, which is all it took to get it going. to the preferred “halo” orbit around the L2 point.
“Webb, welcome home!” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said. “Congratulations to the team for their hard work to ensure Webb arrived at L2 safely today. We take it one step further to uncover the mysteries of the universe. And I can’t wait to see Webb’s first new views of the universe this summer! ”
Webb’s orbit will allow it to have a sweeping view of the universe at any given time, as well as give its telescope’s optical and scientific instruments the opportunity to be cold enough to function and perform. scientific optimization. Webb used as little propellant as possible to correct the flight path while flying to L2 land, leaving as much of the propellant as possible for Webb’s normal operations during its lifetime: holding the station. (small adjustments to keep Webb in the desired orbit) and no-load momentum (to counteract the effects of solar radiation pressure on the giant sunshade).
“Over the past month, JWST has enjoyed incredible success and is a tribute to all those who have spent years and even decades ensuring mission success,” said Bill Ochs, director. Project Webb at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Now we are on the verge of setting up the mirrors, activating and operating the device, and starting to make amazing and amazing discoveries.”
Now Webb’s primary mirroring and Webb . secondary mirroring segments has been implemented From their launch positions, engineers will begin a complex three-month process to align the telescope’s optics with near-nanometer accuracy.
Clock a special episode of NASA Science Live at 3 p.m. EST today to learn more about what’s next for the James Webb Space Telescope.
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