NASA has announced that it has successful completed its final tests on the James Webb Space Telescope, and that it is being prepped for shipment to its launch site in Kourou, French Guiana.
Engineering teams have completed Webb’s long-spanning comprehensive testing regimen at Northrop Grumman’s facilities. Webb’s many tests and checkpoints were designed to ensure that the world’s most complex space science observatory will operate as designed once in space.
Now that observatory testing has concluded, shipment operations have begun. This includes all the necessary steps to prepare Webb for a safe journey through the Panama Canal to its launch location in the northeastern coast of South America. Since no more large-scale testing is required, Webb’s clean room technicians have shifted their focus from demonstrating it can survive the harsh conditions of launch and work in orbit, to making sure it will safely arrive at the launch pad.
Webb’s contamination control technicians, transport engineers, and logistics task forces are all expertly prepared to handle the unique task of getting Webb to the launch site. Shipping preparations will be completed in September.
Gregory L. Robinson, Webb’s program director at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said: “NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has reached a major turning point on its path toward launch with the completion of final observatory integration and testing.
“We have a tremendously dedicated workforce who brought us to the finish line, and we are very excited to see that Webb is ready for launch and will soon be on that science journey.”
While shipment operations are underway, teams located in Webb’s Mission Operations Center (MOC) at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore will continue to check and recheck the complex communications network it will use in space. Recently this network fully demonstrated that it is capable of seamlessly sending commands to the spacecraft. Live launch rehearsals are underway within the MOC with the explicit purpose of preparing for launch day and beyond. There is much to be done before launch, but with integration and testing formally concluded, NASA’s next giant leap into the cosmic unknown will soon be underway.
Once Webb arrives in French Guiana, launch processing teams will configure the observatory for flight. This involves post-shipment checkouts to ensure the observatory hasn’t been damaged during transport, carefully loading the spacecraft’s propellant tanks with hydrazine fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidiser it will need to power its rocket thrusters to maintain its orbit, and detaching ‘remove before flight’ red-tag items like protective covers that keep important components safe during assembly, testing, and transport.
Then engineering teams will mate the observatory to its launch vehicle, an Ariane 5 rocket provided by ESA (European Space Agency), before it rolls out to the launch pad. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.
After launch, Webb will undergo an action-packed six-month commissioning period. Moments after completing a 26-minute ride aboard the Ariane 5 launch vehicle, the spacecraft will separate from the rocket and its solar array will deploy automatically. After that, all subsequent deployments over the next few weeks will be initiated from ground control located at STScI.
Webb will take one month to fly to its intended orbital location in space nearly one million miles away from Earth, slowly unfolding as it goes. Sunshield deployments will begin a few days after launch, and each step can be controlled expertly from the ground, giving Webb’s launch full control to circumnavigate any unforeseen issues with deployment.
Once the observatory has cooled down and stabilised at its frigid operating temperature, several months of alignments to its optics and calibrations of its scientific instruments will occur. Scientific operations are expected to commence approximately six months after launch.
The James Webb Space Telescope will be the world’s premier space science observatory when it launches. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it.
