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posted by requerdanos on Sunday August 29 2021, @06:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the almost-ready-now dept.

The James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's next great observatory, passes final ground tests:

NASA and its partners working on the James Webb Space Telescope have completed their final tests of the giant observatory and are now preparing it for a trip to a South American spaceport for a launch later this year.

Conceived more than 30 years ago as a successor of the then new Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb will be the largest observatory ever to be put in orbit. It is designed to use its infrared eyes to peer further into the universe's history than ever before. With its 6.5-meter in diameter gold-plated mirror, the telescope will attempt to answer questions about the formation of first stars and galaxies out of the darkness of the early universe.

At 44 feet (13.2 meters) long and 14 feet (4.2 m) wide, the telescope is about the size of a large tractor-trailer truck, fitted with intricate sun shades that could cover a tennis court once unfolded.

The program faced many delays, not just due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but seems finally on track to start producing ground-breaking astronomical observations. The testing, which took place at the facilities of prime contractor Northrop Grumman in California, made sure that nothing would go wrong with the more than $10 billion spacecraft during launch and once in space.

"NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has reached a major turning point on its path toward launch with the completion of final observatory integration and testing," Gregory Robinson, Webb's program director at NASA headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. "We have a tremendously dedicated workforce who brought us to the finish line, and we are very excited to see that Webb is ready for launch and will soon be on that science journey."


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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 29 2021, @01:58PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 29 2021, @01:58PM (#1172032)

    Better not launch until the name is fixed
    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02010-x [nature.com]

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 29 2021, @02:28PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 29 2021, @02:28PM (#1172033)

    During the lavender scare, gay people were cast, untruthfully, as perverts who might be desperate to keep their sexual orientation secret and thus be susceptible to revealing government secrets under blackmail.

    Maybe it was the truth.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Sunday August 29 2021, @02:56PM (1 child)

    by ElizabethGreene (6748) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 29 2021, @02:56PM (#1172038) Journal

    There is irony here. The reason it's named after a person is because that makes it less likely congress will cancel it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 29 2021, @04:39PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 29 2021, @04:39PM (#1172054)

      Like the Donald J Trump space force?

  • (Score: 2) by sgleysti on Sunday August 29 2021, @04:32PM

    by sgleysti (56) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 29 2021, @04:32PM (#1172050)

    That's a well-written article. I think it's good they're being thorough about reviewing the record before making a decision.

    Not directly relevant to this issue, I wonder how many of those records are on microfiche. I still think microfiche is really neat.