James Webb Space Telescope

[raven]

Well, she's up and away on the second stage. So many more steps to go, but here we are at last, at long last. My hopes to all and Godspeed.

[smartcooky]

What an odd sequence of orbital maneuvers..... launch to 220 km, then drop down to about 180 km, then turn upwards and ramp the velocity up to about 10km/s.

[apollo16uvc]

The Europeans did their job right, obviously as expected with an almost perfect track record for the respective rocket.
There are some European instruments onboard too, lets hope to perform as specified.

Now the NASA/American part of the sequence needs to go right: Getting the spacecraft where it needs to be and performing the origami sequence.

[apollo16uvc]

DSN is communicating with webb:

[molesworth]

Phew!  <wipes brow>

Fingers crossed it all goes well over the next few weeks, and we get some interesting data soon.  As has often been said, it's not the things we expect to see that will be the most interesting, it'll be the things we had no idea about...

[bknight]

It's off and running.  I watched the launch live until it went through the clouds.

[smartcooky]

Here is a cool website.

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html

It gives running updates on its timeline to L2 showing velocity, percentage of journey completed distance traveled etc

I have it as a pinned tab on my browser.

[Peter B]

What an odd sequence of orbital maneuvers..... launch to 220 km, then drop down to about 180 km, then turn upwards and ramp the velocity up to about 10km/s.

The dive from 220km back down to 180km - is that an example of the Oberth Effect?

[bknight]

Here is a cool websiNeat information, thanks

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html

It gives running updates on its timeline to L2 showing velocity, percentage of journey completed distance traveled etc

I have it as a pinned tab on my browser.

Neat information,  thanks

[smartcooky]

What an odd sequence of orbital maneuvers..... launch to 220 km, then drop down to about 180 km, then turn upwards and ramp the velocity up to about 10km/s.

The dive from 220km back down to 180km - is that an example of the Oberth Effect?

I don't know. I think it may have been intentional. In the commentary, they were talking about performing "the sawtooth maneuver". They also talked about something to do with avoiding direct sunlight on parts of the telescope.

[Bryanpoprobson]

*****BREAKING NEWS*******

First image received from the JWST.



😂🤣 I’m sorry I couldn’t resist.

[smartcooky]

*****BREAKING NEWS*******

First image received from the JWST.



😂🤣 I’m sorry I couldn’t resist.

Priceless!!

[bknight]

The short videos of the antenna deployment was rather neat, now for the sunshade tomorrow.  That one looks mor complicated with more moving parts.

[smartcooky]

The forward and aft Unitized Pallet Structures for the sun shield have been successfully deployed.

Next is the tower assembly deployment tomorrow (Day 4) and the momentum flap the next day (Day 5).

Later on Day 5 will be the first nail-biter, the release of the sun shield cover. If that doesn't happen 100% correctly, game over!

[bknight]

The forward and aft Unitized Pallet Structures for the sun shield have been successfully deployed.

Next is the tower assembly deployment tomorrow (Day 4) and the momentum flap the next day (Day 5).

Later on Day 5 will be the first nail-biter, the release of the sun shield cover. If that doesn't happen 100% correctly, game over!

I wished thy would have released a video, but I guess cameras were in the wrong position.  The sun shield will be a nail biter for sure.  Here's to hoping for a perfect deployment of the sun shield.