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This week, the US Space Agency announced that March 30, 2021 will be the new launch date for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Technical errors cost this entity nearly 10,000 million dollars in losses
After several years of work and budgetary struggle with the US Congress, everything seems ready for next fall NASA launches in the US. space the most ambitious space telescope ever built by man: the James Webb. However, this ambition was frustrated because a report commissioned by NASA indicated that the project still had huge technical flaws that would make it unachievable for it to work properly.
According to the Northrop Grumman contractor's report, technical problems, including human errors, had a big impact on the development schedule. "Ensuring that every element of Webb is working properly before it reaches the space is critical to its success," said Tom Young, chairman of the review panel. .
According to the report, the enormous complexity of the project will require the United States to invest an additional $ 9.66 billion in the project, and an additional delay of 10 months
The delay is not not seen with good eyes by American politicians, who fought with NASA eight years ago for the huge budget that this colossal project According to the New York Times, eight years ago, NASA convinced lawmakers – who wanted to cancel the project – to approve a budget of 8,000 million dollars. With the existing delays, and with these new ones, the cost rises to 9,600. And it is not clear if lawmakers have approved the addition of $ 876 million of this new delay.
That is why Young, who chaired the review panel, noted that "Webb needs to continue because of its extraordinary scientific potential and leadership role in astronomy and astrophysics." [19659003] And it is not a telescope. The Webb will be twice as large as Hubble, currently the most sophisticated space telescope, built jointly by scientists from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).
A cosmic feat
Webb will be able to detect the light of the first stars and galaxies in the far universe, to explore the atmospheres of exoplanets in search of possible signs of livability.
Webb will be folded, origami-style, for its launch in the refit of the Ariane 5 rocket, which is about 5 feet wide. After its launch, the observatory will complete a complex series of deployments, one of the most critical parts of Webb's journey to its final orbit, about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth .
When it will be fully deployed, the primary mirror of Webb extension of more than 6.5 meters. This mirror makes its ability to collect visible light, as well as infrared and ultraviolet data will be twice that of the Hubble telescope.
But to collect infrared light data, the telescope must be extremely cold, so it will have some kind of umbrella that will protect it from solar radiation. This sunscreen will be about the size of a tennis court.
It is precisely this huge protector that was one of the worst flaws of the telescope during tests performed by NASA. It broke out, according to the New York Times, and several cables did not attach to the telescope.
Thomas Zarbuchen, the administrator of the space science agency, told the newspaper that every day of delay was worth a million dollars to NASA. but that "Webb is worth it".
Because of its size and complexity, the process of integrating and testing parts is more complicated than that of an average science mission. Once the spacecraft element will have completed its battery of tests, it will be integrated into the telescope and the element of the scientific instrument that has passed its tests. last year.
The fully assembled observatory will undergo a series of challenging environmental tests and a final rollout test before being sent to the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana.
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