To Stiavelli, that’s equivalent to the risk not existing at all. Thus, in a sense we have no residual risks that are important.” For NASA scientists and engineers, risk isn’t a feeling, it’s a quantifiable metric, and each risk is assessed, measured, tested, and addressed until the remaining risk is low enough to be acceptable. We have risks and we either find them acceptable or change things to mitigate or eliminate them. Thank you to the scientists interviewed for their flexibility.) Stiavelli told me, “Risk has a different meaning in a project like this. (Because of a COVID-exposure day care closure, interviews for this piece were conducted over email. (It’s also my favorite part of the deployment to watch in animation.) Massimo Stiavelli, JWST mission head at the science and operations center at the Space Telescope Science Institute, generally maintains a calm confidence about the telescope’s prospects. And indeed, for scientists whose worries aren’t just amorphous fear, the sunshield deployment is a particular sticking point. (And after those first 29 days there are about six months of cooldown and calibration before observing can begin.) The sunshield itself has 107 restraints holding it in place for launch, each of which must release correctly for success. There are, of course, many more steps to it than that. Planetary scientist Peter Gao, a staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, captured the sentiment in a tweet: “scicomm: JWST is the biggest telescope to be sent to space it will help find life and tell us how the universe started isn’t it amazing? / astronomers: my entire career hinges on this bucket of single point failures I’m so nervous I’m crying and throwing up everywhere.” Astrophysics postdoc Erin May, who studies exoplanet atmospheres-a major focus, pun yes intended, of the new telescope- tweeted, “HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE IN THESE CONDITIONS” with the hashtag #JWSTLaunchMemes. And astronomers are kinda shitting themselves about it. Then it will spend the next 29 days unfurling itself as it makes its way to its new home, almost 1 million miles away. The James Webb Space Telescope will leave Earth origami’d into the nose cone of an Ariane 5 rocket. It also has a 3d model of Webb showing its location in our 3d solar system.On or soon after Friday, NASA will launch its largest-and most complicated yet-orbiting telescope into space. The WhereIsWebb interactive worked in tandem with the Deployment Explorer to expand in greater detail on Webb's schedule, current state, and current state details including speed and distance tracking the flight to L2, each step of its unprecedented deployment process, the cooldown to operational temperatures near absolute zero, and the major mirror and instrument commissioning steps leading to the release of Webb's first images. All of that rich and varied information is retained here for your in-depth exploration. Now, you can use it explore the entire process.Īnnotations: During deployment and commissioning, in near realtime, each current step was updated and annotated with status information, blog posts, press conferences, related images, articles, videos etc. 000 Explore Webb's Deployments & CommissioningĬlick the sequence of images above to explore each step from launch though Webb's first images.ĭuring Webb's launch, ~1,000,000 mile journey to L2, deployment, commissioning and through the release of its first images, this interactive tracked Webb's current state in realtime and mapped out the future steps.
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