Episode 591: The History And Future Of The James Webb Space Telescope

On March 30, 2021, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will blast off from the European Space Agency’s European spaceport in Kourou, French Giana on board an Ariane 5 rocket.

It’ll fly to the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, a relatively stable spot in space that keeps the glare from the Sun, Earth, and Moon all in a tiny spot in the sky. Then, it’ll unfurl its tennis court-sized sunshade, fold out its gigantic 6.5-meter mirror, and peer out into the distant cosmos.

Over the course of the next 10 years, this infrared observatory will help astronomers learn about the earliest moments of the Universe, directly observe the atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars, and peer at newly forming stars and planets.

And if you listened to the words I just said with equal parts terror and skepticism, I don’t blame you. James Webb’s path to space has been long and tortuous. And the risks that the mission still faces are very real. Hopefully, the science will be worth it. Hopefully, nothing else goes wrong from now until deployment.

So today, I want to do a deep dive into James Webb. To talk about the history of the mission, why it exists, how the development went, and where it stands today.

I’ll warn you though, the length of this video is going to go way over budget.

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References:

http://www.stsci.edu/jwst/about-jwst/history

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/servicing/index.html

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/2017/highlights-of-hubble-s-exploration-of-the-universe

http://www.stsci.edu/files/live/sites/www/files/home/hst/documentation/_documents/NextGenerationSpaceTelescope.pdf

https://webb.nasa.gov/content/about/faqs/whoIsJamesWebb.html

http://www.stsci.edu/jwst/about-jwst/history/design-reference-mission-drm

https://archive.ph/20120805155712/http://www.stsci.edu/jwst/news/2003/nasa-announces-contract

https://www.nature.com/articles/4671028a

http://www.icc.dur.ac.uk/~tt/Lectures/Galaxies/Images/Infrared/Regions/irregions.html

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/observatory/sunshield.html

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/observatory/instruments/index.html

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/observatory/instruments/nircam.html

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/observatory/instruments/fgs.html

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/observatory/instruments/miri.html

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/about/comparisonWebbVsHubble.html

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/about/faqs/faq.html

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/forScientists/faqScientists.html

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-completes-webb-telescope-review

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/nasa-s-james-webb-space-telescope-has-been-assembled-for-the-first-time

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