{"id":127419,"date":"2021-09-08T19:25:13","date_gmt":"2021-09-09T02:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/09\/nasa-will-finally-launch-the-james-webb-space-telescope-on-december-18th"},"modified":"2021-09-08T19:25:13","modified_gmt":"2021-09-09T02:25:13","slug":"nasa-will-finally-launch-the-james-webb-space-telescope-on-december-18th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/09\/nasa-will-finally-launch-the-james-webb-space-telescope-on-december-18th","title":{"rendered":"NASA will finally launch the James Webb Space Telescope on December 18th"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s long-delayed<\/a> James Webb Space Telescope is close to entering service. The agency now plans to launch<\/a> the telescope on December 18th, 2,021 just a few months after testing completed in late August. The hardware will reach orbit aboard an ESA-supplied Ariane 5 rocket lifting off from French Guiana. NASA still has to ship the telescope to the launchpad, although much of the rocket has already arrived.<\/p>\n

The JWST was deemed complete<\/a> in 2016 ahead of an expected 2018 launch, but faced a number of delays due to its elaborate construction. It wasn\u2019t assembled until 2019<\/a>, and factors like the COVID-19 pandemic<\/a> further hindered NASA\u2019s efforts. That\u2019s not including earlier setbacks \u2014 development started in 1996 with an expected 2007 deployment, but the team scrapped much of its work and redesigned the equipment in 2005.<\/p>\n

The telescope\u2019s importance hasn\u2019t changed. It\u2019s considered the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope<\/a>. It includes a much larger mirror along with a focus on lower-frequency observations (particularly mid-infrared) that will help it detect early galaxies<\/a> that even Hubble can\u2019t find. That priority also helps explain some of its technical challenges. The JWST\u2019s instruments will need to stay extremely cold (−370F) to avoid interference with infrared measurements, requiring both a large sunshield and an insertion near a Sun-Earth Lagrange point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA\u2019s long-delayed James Webb Space Telescope is close to entering service. The agency now plans to launch the telescope on December 18th, 2,021 just a few months after testing completed in late August. The hardware will reach orbit aboard an ESA-supplied Ariane 5 rocket lifting off from French Guiana. NASA still has to ship the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}