The latest on the James Webb Space Telescope and its tennis-court sized Sun shield
After three decades of planning, designing and building, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is finally due to head to orbit from Europe’s Spaceport, the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana– albeit three days later than expected. The spacecraft is a 6.5m-wide infrared telescope, capable of observing the Universe from the first glow of the Big Bang to planets growing around stars today. Both the spacecraft and its tennis-court sized Sun shield have been folded up to fit inside the Ariane 5 rocket it will launch aboard. However, in late November, a clamp band unexpectedly released, vibrating the observatory.
The JWST is designed to survive much more vigorous shaking during launch, but NASA pushed its launch date back to 22 December to allow for additional checks to ensure everything is well with £10 billion spacecraft.