{"id":132114,"date":"2021-12-10T11:43:24","date_gmt":"2021-12-10T19:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/webb-one-of-mankinds-greatest-masterpieces-is-about-to-unfold-in-space-get-ready-for-29-nail-biting-days"},"modified":"2021-12-10T11:43:24","modified_gmt":"2021-12-10T19:43:24","slug":"webb-one-of-mankinds-greatest-masterpieces-is-about-to-unfold-in-space-get-ready-for-29-nail-biting-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/webb-one-of-mankinds-greatest-masterpieces-is-about-to-unfold-in-space-get-ready-for-29-nail-biting-days","title":{"rendered":"Webb: One Of Mankind\u2019s Greatest Masterpieces Is About To Unfold In Space. Get Ready For 29 Nail-Biting Days"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/webb-one-of-mankinds-greatest-masterpieces-is-about-to-unfold-in-space-get-ready-for-29-nail-biting-days2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If December 22\u2019s launch goes as planned then the engineers behind <a aria-label=\"the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope\" class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/jamiecartereurope\/2020\/03\/29\/in-exactly-a-year-our-knowledge-of-the-cosmos-will-change-forever-this-is-the-10-billion-reason\" target=\"_self\" title=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/jamiecartereurope\/2020\/03\/29\/in-exactly-a-year-our-knowledge-of-the-cosmos-will-change-forever-this-is-the-10-billion-reason\">the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope<\/a> (JWST or \u201cWebb\u201d for short) are in for a nervous Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>Forget that it was originally conceived in the 1990s and was first expected to launch in 2007. Forget also the initial rocket launch\u2014usually viewed as the most nerve-wracking moment. This time it\u2019s not the European Space Agency\u2019s Ariane 5 rocket\u2014due to lift Webb into space from the Guiana Space Center, Kourou, French Guiana on December 18, 2021\u2014that\u2019s giving engineers sleepless nights. It\u2019s the 29 days of \u201cspace origami\u201d they\u2019ll have to endure after the launch as Webb unfolds from its collapse state into a \u201cgiant sunflower.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You see, the technological marvel that is Webb is fully assembled, but folded into the 5.4 meter\/17.7ft. fairing of the Ariane 5 for launch\u2014the largest rocket fairing NASA could find. When it\u2019s in-situ a whopping million miles\/1.5 million kilometers from Earth at the <a aria-label=\"second Lagrange point (L2)\" class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/topics\/universe\/features\/webb-l2.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/topics\/universe\/features\/webb-l2.html\">second Lagrange point (L2) <\/a>\u2014almost certainly too far away for astronauts to fix if the worst happens\u2014it will resemble a huge sunflower once unfurled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If December 22\u2019s launch goes as planned then the engineers behind the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or \u201cWebb\u201d for short) are in for a nervous Christmas. Forget that it was originally conceived in the 1990s and was first expected to launch in 2007. Forget also the initial rocket launch\u2014usually viewed as the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132114","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\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}