He departed into space without a hitch.
The Ariane 5 rocket that carries the James Webb, the largest telescope ever sent into space, took off this Saturday at 12:20 GMT (07:20 in Ecuador), from the European space port of Kurú, in French Guiana.
The James Webb sailed into space without a hitch, but a partially cloudy sky over Kurú did not allow a continuous view of the ascent of the rocket and the two long tongues of fire that caused its engines at full power.
After liftoff, NASA noted in a tweet that at 12:20 GMT had begun “an exciting new decade of science” and that the James Webb “will change our understanding of space as we know it.”
The European Space Agency (ESA) in the same social network pointed out that this launch “is an impressive Christmas gift”, among other things for space science.
The Webb began its journey today after nearly three decades of development and construction work, and years of delays. The importance and revolution of this mission, both from an astronomical and a technological point of view, has caused space agencies to carry out broadcasts in several languages.
NASA is broadcasting it in English, in a program led by astronomer Michelle Thaller, and in Spanish, led by Spanish scientist Begoña Vila, chief systems engineer for James Webb at the Goddard Space Flight Center of the US space agency, who summarized: “it is a historic day.”
Thaller stressed from the telescope that it is not only about advancing in the knowledge of the first galaxies that were born after the Big Bang -the great explosion that is considered to have originated the universe-, and knowing more about “my story, yours, ours history”.
The James Webb will put never-before-seen data and images at our fingertips. “Colors that we have not been able to see” until now in space, detect things “that we did not have in mind in current astrophysics,” said Chilean Nestor Espinoza, one of those involved in this mission.
On his Twitter account, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said: “to see a launch of this magnitude and at this level of international cooperation is to see incredible machinery in action (…), I am proud of the work” .
The James Webb, a collaboration between the space agencies of the United States (NASA), Europe (ESA) and Canada (CSA), will travel up to 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, about four times farther than the Moon.
From there, it will offer an unprecedented view of the universe at near-infrared and mid-infrared wavelengths, and will allow scientists to study a wide variety of celestial objects, being able to look back in time more than 13.5 billion years to see the first galaxies that were born after the Big Bang.
But for this, in addition to separating from the rocket at 27 minutes and 11 seconds, it will have to follow a long journey and overcome a series of critical stages in the next month. The James Webb is so large that it has been folded in origami style to fit on the Arianespace rocket and once in space it will unfold like a transformer toy.
Among others, you will need to open your parasol, the size of a tennis court, and then the primary mirror, 6.5 meters.
The recomposition and tensioning of the enormous solar shield will begin after three days and at twelve the deployment and repositioning of the primary mirror formed by 18 hexagons will begin. These are just some of the delicate phases you will have to go through that no appliance has ever done before. (I)
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