“Webb, welcome home!” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
The largest space observatory in history is already in its final destination: an orbit around the Sun, in line with the Earth, while rotating around L2, a point located 1.5 million kilometers from our planet. Once its mirrors have been aligned and its instruments calibrated, in the middle of the year it will offer never-before-seen images of the universe.
As planned, the James Webb Space Telescope fired its thrusters for nearly five minutes (297 seconds exactly) on Tuesday to complete the latest course correction, NASA has confirmed.
This correction operation inserted Webb into its final orbit around the second Lagrange point (L2), an ideal place to stabilize the ships located 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. From there, in line with our planet, it will orbit the Sun.
The last trajectory correction burn only added about 1.6 meters per second to Webb’s speed, but that was all it took to send the ship into orbit around L2.
“Congratulations to the team for all their hard work in ensuring Webb’s safe arrival at L2,” added Nelson. We’re one step closer to unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and I can’t wait to see your first new views of the universe this summer!
What is expected?
Webb’s orbit will give it a wide view of the cosmos at any time, as well as the opportunity for the telescope’s optics and science instruments to cool enough to function and perform optimal, cutting-edge science.
The observatory has used as little propellant as possible to make corrections to its course as it travels into the L2 environment, in order to leave as much of the remaining fuel as possible for ordinary Webb operations throughout its life: ship maintenance (small adjustments to keep it in orbit) and boost release (counteracting the effects of solar radiation pressure on its massive sunshield).
“Over the last month, JWST has achieved amazing success and it is a tribute to all the people who have spent many years, and even decades, to ensure the success of the mission,” said Bill Ochs, Webb project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, “now we are about to align the mirrors, activate and start the instruments and start wonderful and amazing discoveries.”
With Webb’s primary and secondary mirror segments deployed from their launch positions, over the next three months engineers will begin the sophisticated process of aligning the telescope’s optics with near-nanometer precision. It is the next phase of the observatory commissioning or start-up period, which will end in five months to finally give way to its long-awaited scientific operations.