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"James Webb" space telescope with folded out front and rear pallets (animation by NASA)
Photo: AP
The "James Webb" space telescope is gradually taking on its planned shape. On Thursday night, around 1:27 p.m. Central European time, the rear pallet was unfolded, which, together with the front pallet that was already unfolded on Wednesday evening, is supposed to carry the telescope's sunshade. The US space agency Nasa announced in a blog. "Our telescope blooms like a flower in space," wrote NASA on Twitter. The telescope launched into space a few days ago.
As a result, the gold-coated telescope mirror would now also be visible - if someone in space could take a look at the far side of »Webb«.
According to NASA, the actual movement took only 18 minutes, but required hours of preparation because of a number of control steps.
The complete, tennis court-sized sun shield will be opened at the earliest next Sunday (January 2, 2022).
In an interview with SPIEGEL, Günther Hasinger, director of science at the European Space Agency Esa, who was involved in the project, described this process as "a particularly tricky matter".
There are a total of 59 so-called
single point failures
, i.e. points at which the mission could fail due to a single error.
So far everything has gone according to plan.
Remote-controlled precision work at 3400 km / h
The sun shield consists of five wafer-thin layers of the plastic Kapton and a protective film made of aluminum and silicon.
It is supposed to keep heat away from the telescope so that it can cool down to a temperature below 50 Kelvin (minus 223 degrees Celsius) and the optics work properly.
The whole project to collect light from the origin of the universe costs nearly ten billion dollars.
The work is controlled remotely from the control center in Baltimore, while the telescope is moving away from Earth at around 3,400 kilometers per hour.
On the “Where's Webb?” Page, you can follow the telescope's path.
At midday on Wednesday, Central European time, the object was almost 548,000 kilometers from Earth, significantly further than the moon.
It had already covered almost 38 percent of the distance to its destination: the Lagrange point L2, where the forces of attraction between the sun and the earth are in equilibrium.
The arrival is scheduled for around January 23rd.
The mirror should be aligned on the way.
NASA expects the first pictures in June.
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