Watch this space. James Webb Space Telescope: To infinity and beyond

The JWST is a space telescope built by NASA along with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. Conceived in 1996, JWST – named in honour of the late NASA Administrator, James Webb, who played a key role in the Apollo Space Programme – faced several issues throughout its course from cost overruns to launch delays, redesign and problems caused by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. It took a total of 40 million man-hours for the project to come to life with the involvement of thousands of scientists from 14 countries with a final price tag of $9.66 billion.

It is now touted as the successor to the Hubble and Spitzer space telescope with far more advanced technical abilities. According to NASA, JWST will ‘allow scientists to explore every phase of cosmic history – from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe, and everything in between’.

JWST was sent to space via Ariane 5, one of the world's most reliable launch vehicles, from French Guiana. With a total payload mass of nearly 6,200 kg, including the observatory, on-orbit consumables and launch vehicle adaptor, the JWST is almost the size of a tennis court. It carries the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), the Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), the Mid Infrared Instrument (MIRI) and the Fine Guidance Sensors/Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (FGS/NIRISS). All these instruments have superior abilities compared to NASA's earlier launched space telescopes. Its technical prowess is so exceptional that it could ‘detect the heat signature of a bumblebee at the distance of the moon’.

It eyes to pursue one of the most pressing questions in science – the origins of the universe. According to its website, the JWST will aim to ‘search for the first galaxies or luminous objects formed after the big bang, determine how galaxies evolved from their formation until now, observe the formation of stars from the first stages to the formation of planetary systems, measure the physical and chemical properties of planetary systems, including our solar system, and investigate the potential for life in those systems’.

JWST is not only better than the Hubble in terms of technical capabilities, but also in size and orbital range. As the programme has given birth to several new state-of-the-art telescopic advancements, its abilities were tested over a ‘seven-year integration and test (I&T) plan to validate the flight hardware in an incremental and thorough way’. It has a combination of large aperture, diffraction-limited image quality, and infrared sensitivity over a broad wavelength range hitherto not available from the ground- or space-based facilities. The mission's lifetime has been planned for 5-1/2 years with the goal of having a lifetime greater than 10 years.

JWST is on its way to its final destination at the second Lagrange point (L2), which is about 1.5 million kms directly behind the earth as viewed from the sun and the journey will span about a month. NASA said that once it reaches L2, JWST's orbit will follow a special path around L2 that allows it to stay on earth’s night side and track along with earth while moving around the sun. The telescope can be tracked live at https://jwst.nasa.gov/.

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