James Webb space telescope reaches final destination 1 million miles from earth

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Today, at 2 p.m. EST, Webb fired its onboard thrusters for nearly five minutes (297 seconds) to complete the final postlaunch course correction to Webb’s trajectory. This mid-course correction burn inserted Webb toward its final orbit around the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2, nearly 1 million miles away from the Earth.

The final mid-course burn added only about 3.6 miles per hour (1.6 meters per second) – a mere walking pace – to Webb’s speed, which was all that was needed to send it to its preferred “halo” orbit around the L2 point.

“Webb, welcome home!” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Congratulations to the team for all of their hard work ensuring Webb’s safe arrival at L2 today. We’re one step closer to uncovering the mysteries of the universe. And I can’t wait to see Webb’s first new views of the universe this summer!”

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Webb’s orbit will allow it a wide view of the cosmos at any given moment, as well as the opportunity for its telescope optics and scientific instruments to get cold enough to function and perform optimal science. Webb has used as little propellant as possible for course corrections while it travels out to the realm of L2, to leave as much remaining propellant as possible for Webb’s ordinary operations over its lifetime: station-keeping (small adjustments to keep Webb in its desired orbit) and momentum unloading (to counteract the effects of solar radiation pressure on the huge sunshield).

“During the past month, JWST has achieved amazing success and is a tribute to all the folks who spent many years and even decades to ensure mission success,” said Bill Ochs, Webb project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “We are now on the verge of aligning the mirrors, instrument activation and commissioning, and the start of wondrous and astonishing discoveries.”

Now that Webb’s primary mirror segments and secondary mirror have been deployed from their launch positions, engineers will begin the sophisticated three-month process of aligning the telescope’s optics to nearly nanometer precision.

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The world’s biggest, most powerful space telescope reached its final destination 1 million miles from Earth on Monday, a month after it lifted off on a quest to behold the dawn of the universe.

The James Webb Space Telescope fired its rocket thrusters for nearly five minutes to go into orbit around the sun at its designated spot, and NASA confirmed the operation went as planned.

The mirrors on the $10 billion observatory still must be meticulously aligned and the infrared detectors sufficiently chilled before science observations can begin in June. But flight controllers in Baltimore were euphoric after chalking up another success.

“We’re one step closer to uncovering the mysteries of the universe. And I can’t wait to see Webb’s first new views of the universe this summer!” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.

The telescope will enable astronomers to peer back further in time than ever before, all the way back to when the first stars and galaxies were forming 13.7 billion years ago. That’s a mere 100 million years from the Big Bang, when the universe was created.

Besides making stellar observations, Webb will scan the atmospheres of alien worlds for possible signs of life.

A sunshield as big as a tennis court stretched open on the telescope in early January, 1 1/2 weeks after the Christmas Day launch from French Guiana. The observatory’s gold-coated mirror—21 feet (6.5 meters) across—unfolded a few days later.

Monday’s engine firing put Webb into orbit around the sun at the so-called second Lagrange point, where the gravitational forces of the sun and Earth balance. The 7-ton spacecraft always faces Earth’s night side to keep its infrared detectors as frigid as possible.

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