James Webb Space Telescope

davej

This is a good 30 minute programme about the JWST on BBC Radio 4

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00jzx36/The_New_Galileos_The_James_Webb_Space_Telescope

davej

Beeker

Things not going very well with it at the moment, over budget and delayed:(Hopefully they can get things sorted and go fly!:)

http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/5107

djhaxman

It is such a shame that everything costs so much in space exploration. It has been a bit of a disaster so far, delay after delay, budgets running over, hope it's worth it if/when they get it into space.

Dave!

Read an article about this recently, and it sounds like such a risky and expensive project! :eek: Somethin like $5 billion so far I think? And more money will have to be pumped in if it's to be working by 2015. I know space exploration is pricey business, but this is taking alot of money from other projects, and if anything goes wrong then it can't be fixed (right?). Is the payoff really worth it?

I don't know enough about astronomy to answer that! :eek:

AlmightyCushion

Dave! wrote: »

if anything goes wrong then it can't be fixed (right?).

Not necessarily. A few things went wrong with Hubble (one was identified just after launch I believe) and they fixed it.

djhaxman

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Not necessarily. A few things went wrong with Hubble (one was identified just after launch I believe) and they fixed it.

Not quite. If parts break or malfunction, they'll have to stay broken because the telescope is going to be at the L2 Lagrangian point, about a million miles from earth. This is where the Earth's and the sun's gravity cancel each other out, kinda like a geostationary orbit for a satellite around the Earth. So a repair mission is probably out of the question. If its a software issue that they can fix, then it's not as big a problem.

AlmightyCushion

djhaxman wrote: »

Not quite. If parts break or malfunction, they'll have to stay broken because the telescope is going to be at the L2 Lagrangian point, about a million miles from earth. This is where the Earth's and the sun's gravity cancel each other out, kinda like a geostationary orbit for a satellite around the Earth. So a repair mission is probably out of the question. If its a software issue that they can fix, then it's not as big a problem.

Cheers for clearing that up. I wasn't sure how far our they were planning to put it and just assumed they were doing something similar to hubble. Will that not mean it will be outdated sooner? I thought one of the reasons we're still using hubble is because it got a few upgrades keeping it at the cutting edge.

djhaxman

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Cheers for clearing that up. I wasn't sure how far our they were planning to put it and just assumed they were doing something similar to hubble. Will that not mean it will be outdated sooner? I thought one of the reasons we're still using hubble is because it got a few upgrades keeping it at the cutting edge.

It's all to do with keeping the telescope cool, it scans in infra red unlike Hubble and can be kept pointed away from the sun at the L2 point. This article does the comparison with Hubble. Unfortunately as you say, it will become outdated more quickly.

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/comparison.html

stevoslice

I have a few pictures from 2007 when the model was on display in the Museum of Modern Art in Kilmainham, was in FAS at the time and our phase got picked to put together the life-size replica.

was a great experience and as i recall, the weather was spectacular, so nice was it that when talking to the NASA guy who was from California, I asked him what the weather was like over there and he replied "pretty much the same as what you guys got over here". :P I think it actually rained for the rest of the summer LOL.

anyways:

stevoslice

...


the second last one here is my favourite, put the scissors lift up as high as i could to get a good shot of the whole thing, sweet.