Engineers: Webb undamaged by “incident”, ready for December 22nd launch
Arianespace engineers have confirmed after testing that the James Webb Space Telescope was undamaged by “incident” that occurred during stacking, and have okayed the resumption of the telescope’s preparation for launch.
On Wednesday, Nov. 24, engineering teams completed these tests, and a NASA-led anomaly review board concluded no observatory components were damaged in the incident. A “consent to fuel” review was held, and NASA gave approval to begin fueling the observatory. Fueling operations will begin Thursday, Nov. 25, and will take about 10 days.
The launch is now set for December 22nd.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Arianespace engineers have confirmed after testing that the James Webb Space Telescope was undamaged by “incident” that occurred during stacking, and have okayed the resumption of the telescope’s preparation for launch.
On Wednesday, Nov. 24, engineering teams completed these tests, and a NASA-led anomaly review board concluded no observatory components were damaged in the incident. A “consent to fuel” review was held, and NASA gave approval to begin fueling the observatory. Fueling operations will begin Thursday, Nov. 25, and will take about 10 days.
The launch is now set for December 22nd.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
They better pray there is no “unanticipated glitch” they failed to consider that kills this mission in space traceable to this incident.
I hope with all my heart that Webb is a grand success, but NASA’s administrative style has to change. The cost, delays, and hyper anxiety it has allowed and fomented in this program are a scandal and Congress should refuse to keep funding such dismal management.
MHO.
The problem with the vibrations from this “incident” is that JWST is designed to survive the vibrations of the Ariane 5 launch. Those basically go up and down. Vibrations in another direction might loosen some of the fine mechanics necessary to fold it up in space. The electronics and software are all straightforward to check out. But the mechanics of the unfolding that we all worry about are not. They would have to bring it home to its vacuum chamber and unfold it there in order to check that out properly. Everyone’s patience is over already, so I’m sure they won’t do that. And what would happen with the last Ariane 5 in the jungle meanwhile? No, it will be launched for Christmas. Just get it over with. We are supposed to hear more from NASA on Friday.
The recent Decadal Survey, which I have only had a very selective glance at yet, mentioned something about doing things differently with the next big space telescope. What caught my interest was what they call “The Interstellar Probe”, which I would call the trans-Solar probe because it will not reach for another star. It will just go as far as possible as quickly as possible, which is pretty cool! In order to measure interstellar winds, magnetic fields, cosmic radiation, dust density perhaps and such. They have a 50 year plan for that proposed mission, and give special considerations to the implications of that. Which I think is a great step, future spaceflight will be multi-generational projects. Then I have some questions about their ideas of how to get “there” (nowhere really, it’s somewhat like Hubble Deep Field) as quickly as possible. But I’ll look at it again before I say more about it.
“No Agenda”
Ep. 1402 (November 26, 2021)
Adam Curry & John C. Dvorak discuss…. The James Webb Space Telescope
https://youtu.be/niexrJNUfg8?t=3470
“Sounds like a fiasco, waiting to happen…”