James Webb | NASA delays the launch of the most powerful telescope in history

The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scheduled for December 22, has been delayed at least two days, so that this observatory, considered the successor of Hubble, will not be sent into space before Friday, December 24.

The new delay is due to a communication problem between the observatory and the launch vehicle system, according to the website of the United States Space Agency (NASA), which hopes to be able to provide new information about the launch before December 17.

The James Webb Space Telescope, named after a former NASA administrator, will be the world’s largest space science observatory when launched, capable of surveying hitherto inaccessible worlds and exploring the origins of our solar system.

This joint mission of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency will be launched into space from the European spaceport in French Guiana aboard an Ariane 5 rocket on which the telescope has been secured this end of week.

The launch of the telescope, which was originally due to go into orbit in spring 2019, has been delayed for at least three other times.

The new delay was confirmed today at a press conference by some of the main ESA scientists participating in the mission and who preferred not to elaborate on the subject so as not to give rise to speculation.

Catarina Alves de Oliveira, ESA scientist for Webb’s NIRSpec instrument, explained that the telescope has been tested for a long time and many trials have been done to ensure that everything will go smoothly, from launch to deployment already in orbit. “There are very critical and ambitious parts to the whole process” but James Webb “is ready” to deploy in space and later, when it is in orbit, “we are going to proceed very slowly, without taking risks. We will always stop before each big step to ensure that everything goes well and we will be in constant communication with him ”.

And, although the team has rigorously tested the telescope, when it separates from the rocket and begins its journey towards the orbit in which it will operate for the next few years, the James Webb will go through a complex process to unfold in various stages and release the sunshade. , the antenna and the instruments with which it is equipped. “It is a very rehearsed and tested process that we will all be very aware of”, has clarified Macarena García Marín, ESA scientist for the development and scientific support and calibration of MIRI / JWST.

When it begins to operate, the telescope will conduct part of its observations outside the Solar System. Exoplanets, for example, will be one of the pillars of this mission, explained Alves de Oliveira. “The first year of observations, the Webb -which has received more than a thousand research proposals from scientific teams from all over the world- will dedicate 20-25% of the observation time to study some 60 or 70 exoplanets. “We want to know what they are made of, what they have in the atmosphere and for that Webb will allow us to make very precise observations that will help us to know what structure and molecules are on those planets, and that’s only the first year”, has underlined.

Within the Solar System, the telescope will study planets beyond Earth, such as gas giants and icy planets, but above all it will focus a lot on observing the atmospheres and structure of those planets. “Webb is going to give us the detail”, has highlighted Macarena García Marín, ESA scientist for the development and scientific support and calibration of MIRI / JWST. Of course, compared to Hubble, the new telescope has a drawback: it cannot be repaired, in fact, it was not even designed for that, ESA scientists have explained. However, all electronic systems have redundancies called “Side A and side B”, has pointed out Macarena García, so that “Whenever there is an anomaly, we can deal with them by going to side B, which ensures that you can continue using the instruments”.

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