The countdown begins for the highly anticipated Christmas launch of the James Webb (JWST) space telescope, heir to the more famous Hubble and the result of the collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
Placed on the launch pad of the Kourou spaceport (French Guiana) aboard the Ariane-5 rocket, it is ready to depart on December 25, between 13:20 and 13:52 (Italian time), and thus undertake a historic mission which will allow you to see the universe like never before.
The Jswt telescope will travel on a direct escape trajectory to its destination more than 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. Webb's "first message" to Earth will arrive about twenty minutes after launch, just before Webb separates from the rocket to begin his solitary life in space.
The signal will appear as a peak of radio waves on a monitor at the 10-meter antenna in Malindi (Kenya), managed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and part of ESA's Estrack collaboration network. This initial signal will be followed by a flow of information to communicate to the operators the status of the spacecraft after the fatigues of the launch, and at the same time it will be possible for the ESA team at the Agency's Operations Center in Germany to transmit commands and Important information about the mission at NASA's Webb Mission Control.
From the moment of separation, Malindi will have three phases of visibility with the mission: initially the ESA station will communicate with Webb for the first hour after the separation, then the NASA antenna in Canberra will join the support and Malindi will switch to a backup role. .
When the spacecraft is no longer visible from Canberra, Malindi will take over the reins, before the NASA station in Madrid takes over the support.
After the separation, and during the support to Webb, the Malindi station will also monitor the activities of the Ariane launcher for about an hour after take-off.