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The James Webb telescope has a bona fide launch date:
The telescope is ready. So is the rocket. It's time.
NASA announced in August that the James Webb Space Telescope had passed its final ground-based tests and was being prepared for shipment to its launch site in Kourou, French Guiana. Now, the oft-delayed $10 billion telescope has an official launch date: December 18, 2021.
The date was announced on Wednesday by NASA, the European Space Agency, and the launch provider, Arianespace. The space telescope will launch on an Ariane 5 rocket.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope launch delayed to December:
NASA's long-awaited and high-powered James Webb Space Telescope won't begin observations this year after NASA and its counterpart the European Space Agency (ESA) announced another launch delay.
[...] "We now know the day that thousands of people have been working towards for many years, and that millions around the world are looking forward to," Günther Hasinger, ESA's director of science, said in an agency statement. "Webb and its Ariane 5 launch vehicle are ready, thanks to the excellent work across all mission partners. We are looking forward to seeing the final preparations for launch at Europe's Spaceport."
[...] Once the James Webb Space Telescope launches, the spacecraft will spend about a month traveling the 930,000 miles (1.5 kilometers) out to its destination, the second Lagrange point (L2)[*]. Here, the observatory can enjoy a relatively stable "parking spot" orbit on the opposite side of Earth from the sun. The location is crucial for the telescope, which must remain well shielded from the heat that would interfere with the infrared capabilities on the observatory.
The telescope's instruments won't turn on until two or three months after launch, and typical science won't begin until about six months after launch, according to ESA.
[*] Wikipedia entry on Lagrange points and the specific entry on L2.
Hopefully all will go well with the launch and deployment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 09 2021, @01:17PM (2 children)
does anybody know the planned first light target?
a quick search just has articles rabiding on about first light galaxies post the dark age. all very cool but not what i was wondering about at this time.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday September 09 2021, @01:32PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#After-launch_deployment [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_James_Webb_Space_Telescope#After-launch_plans [wikipedia.org]
Looks like about 2 months from launch to get it in position and unfolded, and another 5 months or so to let it cool down and undergo tests.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by FatPhil on Thursday September 09 2021, @01:50PM
“The first observing cycle with a new observatory is always special, especially one as powerful and highly anticipated as Webb. We had an incredibly interesting couple of weeks of intense proposal reviews during which the reviewers did a great job of sorting through and ranking all the possible science cases proposed. I commend them for their hard work, especially under pandemic conditions,” said Sembach. “I’m very pleased to be able to approve such a strong science program for the observatory. These observations are going to provide stunning views of the universe and lead us in new investigative directions that will set the stage for decades of research.”
-- https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2021/news-2021-018
Personally, I presume it will be one of the ERSs, as several of them are little more than "test what it can do when looking at $OBJECTTYPE", they're listed here: https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-ers-programs
Here are the approved GTOs: https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-programs/cycle-1-gto
And finally, the GOs, which I presume will have lower priority: https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-programs/cycle-1-go
However, given the limited scienciness of some of the ERSs, and the fact that the tests will be taking images through all the instruments - it almost seems a bit artificial to say that those images don't count because nobody specifically called them an "observation".
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