James Webb update, BBC 'click' programme.

[leemanley]

Just watched a small piece on the BBC news channel Click programme which shows us how the construction of the Hubble beater is coming along, this thing WILL BE AMAZING !!!
There is a longer version of the programme mid-morning so maybe  they'll show more of it, still worth watching as it is though.

I think you can also get it on iplayer. 

Cheers, Lee

[DRT]

I watched it this morning - an impressive looking machine!

I didn't know until watching this that the JWST will orbit the Sun, not the Earth, and will be so far away that maintenance and repair will be impossible. Let's hope it works

[jabeoo1]

I didn't know until watching this that the JWST will orbit the Sun, not the Earth, and will be so far away that maintenance and repair will be impossible. Let's hope it works

I did not know this either.  Gaia currently sits at L2 until 2018 then I think it gets kicked out into the graveyard orbit with the other 'junk' to allow the James Webb to take a halo orbit around L2. Later the Euclid mission is also planned to chip in with some redshift measurements to better understand dark matter & dark energy.  There is an X ray telescope 100 times more sensitive than Chandra to follow that 

Us monkeys are unpicking the universe.

[DRT]

An interesting diagram to give a sense of the scale of this thing...

JWST-HST-primary-mirrors [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], by Bobarino, from Wikimedia Commons

[Grotemobile]

http://jwst.nasa.gov/

U might be interested in

this.

Steve

[Tomjo59]

http://jwst.nasa.gov/U might be interested inthis.Steve

Thanks for the link Steve. After the miracle of Hubble, and the promise of the James Webb, we really are lucky to be living in an astronomy 'golden age'!

[laudropb]

Very interesting. Thanks for the heads up.

[ronin]

It had better work perfectly when you consider the amount over budget and over schedule it has gone.

It was supposed to be $1.6 bn and launched in 2011, now it is $8 bn and goes up (hopefully) in 2018.

I hope that it does not need all mirrors to unfold to be useable, motors and space craft tend to not mix well - that was what did  for Beagle 2, one panel of the six failed and that was the end. JWST has 18 mirror panels to unfold and I assume all have to be successful.

[LukeSkywatcher]

I saw this show yesterday. I have to say that the whole mission of opening up the mirror while in space seems very technical and could have many problems. I am sure though that the people building it know what they are doing. 

[Pluto the Snowman]

Am I the only one that thinks the rocket that will carry the scope into space will explode at or shortly after launch? Chances are there will be a problem with the collimation just like there was with the HST, but it has been mentioned repairs and maintenance cannot be carried out on the James Webb thing. I really doubt this will work out. 

[Stu]

Am I the only one that thinks the rocket that will carry the scope into space will explode at or shortly after launch? Chances are there will be a problem with the collimation just like there was with the HST, but it has been mentioned repairs and maintenance cannot be carried out on the James Webb thing. I really doubt this will work out.

I suspect you are one of the few thinking like this, yes.

Putting any object into space is a difficult and risky business; do you not think the people working for years to make this happen are doing everything in their power to ensure its success?

Hubble's issue was nothing to do with collimation, it was caused by a minute mistake in grinding the mirror. The mirror was still ground to such an accuracy that they were able to reverse the problem using corrective lenses.

Comparisons with Beagle 2 are pretty irrelevant given the difference in budget, Beagle was done on a shoestring, it's amazing it got as far as it did.

I'm sure all the mirror elements do have to unfurl and align in order for it to succeed. I, for one, find the technology and capability to put these things into space quite mind boggling, and will have everything crossed that it succeeds, rather than doom mongering.

As for budgets...... How do you budget for something which has never been done before? These things are always a game of getting the project signed off by being optimistic, then the real work starts!

[Pluto the Snowman]

I suspect you are one of the few thinking like this, yes.

Putting any object into space is a difficult and risky business; do you not think the people working for years to make this happen are doing everything in their power to ensure its success?

Hubble's issue was nothing to do with collimation, it was caused by a minute mistake in grinding the mirror. The mirror was still ground to such an accuracy that they were able to reverse the problem using corrective lenses.

Comparisons with Beagle 2 are pretty irrelevant given the difference in budget, Beagle was done on a shoestring, it's amazing it got as far as it did.

I'm sure all the mirror elements do have to unfurl and align in order for it to succeed. I, for one, find the technology and capability to put these things into space quite mind boggling, and will have everything crossed that it succeeds, rather than doom mongering.

As for budgets...... How do you budget for something which has never been done before? These things are always a game of getting the project signed off by being optimistic, then the real work starts!

Lets hope your right. HST produced some pretty awsome stuff. What will this telescope do better than HST anyway?

[Stu]

Lets hope your right. HST produced some pretty awsome stuff. What will this telescope do better than HST anyway?

I believe it looks more towards the infrared, so detects objects which are highly red shifted so it is able to go much deeper than Hubble. That's why it has to be at the Lagrange point, so it is shielded from the sun's heat by the earth and can be cooled enough so it's heat does not swamp the signals it is looking for

[DRT]

What will this telescope do better than HST anyway?

Everything

I agree with Stu that comparing this to Beagle 2 is a bit meaningless. Not only were the budgets and technology wildly different, Beagle 2 had to travel much farther away and then land with a bump on a planet. The JWST isn't doing that.