James Webb Telescope

The official name is The James Webb Space Telescope, and it's scheduled to be launched in October 2018. This is the replacement for the Hubble Telescope, which is getting a bit long in the tooth, so to speak.

The JWST has a 6.5 meter mirror as opposed to the Hubble's 2.4 meter main mirror. The Hubble is in orbit around the Earth, whereas the JWST will be located in the L2 Lagrange point (1.5 million kilometers from Earth) between the Earth and the Sun, but it will need a large sunscreen to keep it cooled. Having it in the Lagrange point (where gravity pull from the Sun and Earth are equalized) allows the instrument to be in a stable orientation.

Why is it the James Webb telescope? That's because James Webb was instrumental to the sucess of the Apollo program and also laid the groundwork for a lot of NASA's research work when he was NASA's second administrator after Van Braun.

This amazing instrument will enable some very interesting and critical astronomical observations to be made, including seeing the very earliest formation of galaxies and stars after the Big Bang. It will be able to image the universe in both the visible and infrared parts of the spectrum. This will be possible because the main mirror will be gold coated beryllium. The mirror will be composed of 18 hexagonal segments that will be independently positioned to insure optimum focus.

This telescope is a combined project of NASA, ESA, and the CSA. A lot of other countries will be involved, mostly in the instrument category. This thing will not be cheep. The final estimate is 8.8 billion dollars. This almost caused the U.S. government to ditch the project.

I'm sure you could imagine the enormity of this project. It will be the most advanced astronomical instrument ever. I just hope that the launch goes well.

Thanks for reading.