James Webb Telescope Passes Critical Tests 82
eldavojohn writes "The Hubble Telescope's successor reached a milestone today as it passed a critical design review. The James Webb Space Telescope was originally set to launch in 2013 but has run about $1B over budget and has been pushed back to a 2014 launch. Today's good news means that there shouldn't be further delays as the JWST has accomplished all science and engineering requirements for all mission-critical design functionality. Scientists, of course, think these delays and costs 'pale in comparison to the secrets of the universe the James Webb Space Telescope is expected to unlock.' These are exciting times for many realms of science, even if we're somewhat saddened by it being the loyal Hubble's twilight hours."
Hubble vs James Webb (Score:2)
Just asking:
Anyone knows what are the capabilities of James Webb telescope, as compared to the (upgraded) Hubble telescope that we have been using?
If the James Webb telescope is better, in what way it is better?
Just asking, and thanks !
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- Larger mirror than HST so more sensitivity (can see fainter stars and galaxies), and better angular resolution (diffraction limit).
- Infrared optimized. Because of thermal backgrounds, infrared is best done from space. (HST has some IR capability though)
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Astronomy Feed [feeddistiller.com] @ Feed Distiller [feeddistiller.com]
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Can anyone explain to me, how the very first comment containing some actual content, is redundant? (A: It’s not.)
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I was wondering why I never get mod points anymore
Seems since I critiqued my government for being corrupt and in the pockets of multinational corporations
Time to fork /. and start another nerd site
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Your post was not troll
Just that slashdot only gives modpoints to stupid assholes anymore
Don't take it personally
With great responsibility comes great incompetence
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Oh I get it. The joke just was waaayyyy over your head! Nice EPIC FAIL dude! ^^
Seems that also any sufficiently advanced joke is indistinguishable from a troll. ^^
But hey, about how much I care: My Karma: Still Excellent. ^^ So Fuck you motherfucker [youtube.com]! :D
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I’m excited about the James Webb. Since it is one step further to something that almost sounds surreal: In our lifetimes, telescopes will become advanced enough, to be able to see lifeforms on other planets with a better resolution than Google earth/maps right now. Think about that for a minute... Just wow.
Oh Great... You just know where this will lead... Intragalactic goatse...
Hubble II (Score:2)
Re:Hubble II (Score:5, Informative)
It is a pity more isn't put into projects like this - I personally feel that we've have learnt so much from Hubbble that it is, at least for the time being, the best option for space exploration. But what wil happen to Hubble? Surely it will retain some functionality into the future?
They'll keep Hubble going as long as they can since its capabilities aren't going to be duplicated by any mission within the next decade. The weak link of the telescope seems to be the gyroscopes, which are used to point the telescope. They'll probably fail before the instruments have completely failed.
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They will keep Hubble going for as long as possible. However it's capabilities will be greatly surpassed by both the Webb and the E-ELT [youtube.com] within the next decade. We are living in a golden age of astronomy, when I was a kid in the 60's-70's the largest telescope in the world boasted a 0.5 meter mirror, the E-ELT will have a 42 meter mirror.
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I presume that you meant 5 meters (the 200 inch Hale at Mt. Palomar)?
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Unless you were a kid before 1908.... Mt. Wilson was 60" (1.5 meter)
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The 1860s?
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It was destroyed by Philip J. Fry in the First Omicronian Invasion of Earth because it looked like an Omicronian Ship.
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The Webb telescope is estimated to cost around $4.5 billion and have a life span of 5-10 years. The ISS will cost over $100 billion over 30 years and we will have spent $174 billion in almost 30 years of shuttle service when it retires.
If we built several space telescopes instead of 1 every 20-30 years, we would have less money for shuttle and ISS missions. That would mean that we would not answer such burning questions as:
- Do mice get osteoporosis in space? (link [nasa.gov])
- Do LANs work in space? (link [nasa.gov])
- How do
Re:Hubble II (Score:4, Insightful)
If that's the worst you could find, I'm not impressed.
If we want to put people into space, questions like the health effects of being there is rather important.
And they test on mice, because you can kill it and examine all the bones in detail. I'm sure they do checks of the astronaut's bones as well, but you can do much more invasive examinations of a mouse.
It seems to me this is a test of the IIS' specific LAN, not LANs in general. Things in space have to be specially designed, I'm pretty sure it's not a normal off the shelf switch what they have up there. And any lessons learned there will be probably useful for future things. I don't know if space telescopes use networking internally, but it seems like a possibility.
Well, again, if you want to launch people into space, not killing them while getting there is important. This one seems to also test whether the UI will be readable in launch conditions. Which also seems kind of important, since they may need to interact with it during launch.
Just like with the mice, it's research of the long term consequences of being in space. Yeast reproduces quickly, too, which is good for genetics research.
Ok, and how do you go inhabit a planet, if you don't know whether the astronauts will be able to deal with launch conditions, not die of cancer due to the radiation during the travel, and retain enough bone mass to avoid breaking their legs during the landing?
I vaguely remember hearing that atronauts' health deteriorates significantly after staying on the IIS for a long time. If we're going to land on another planet we'd have to be sure that the astronauts will be in good enough condition to do whatever needs to be done once they land.
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And they test on mice, because you can kill it and examine all the bones in detail. I'm sure they do checks of the astronaut's bones as well, but you can do much more invasive examinations of a mouse.
Ah science at it's worst, humans murdering and torturing other species and somehow justifying it on bettering themselves.
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So...you're volunteering to go up there so we can cut you open afterwards?
Uhuh? Wasn't thinking so either.
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We DO have half a dozen space telescopes in orbit. Right now.
1. Chandra
2. Fermi
3. Spitzer
4. Hubble
5. Wilkinson
6. Herschel
If the goal is "to understand alot [sic] more of the universe," why are you limiting your telescopes to optical and NIR?
It's not smooth sailing from here (Score:5, Insightful)
The article states that the JWST passed the Mission Critical Design Review, which is a specific event, not just a "critical review". This review means that the entire spacecraft has been designed and analyzed. However, there are likely to be further delays as hardware is built and engineers realize it doesn't quite meet the expectations that the analysis set out for it.
Further delays will be greatly discouraged (Score:2)
It is also worth pointing out that CDR is an event (as the parent states), not a "test" (as the article title alleges).
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Hello, troll. Some points.
1. Private contractors (including Northrop Grumman and Ball Aerospace) have participated in this telescope's creation. Thus, much of the telescope has indeed been built by private companies.
2. A billion dollars is relatively insignificant with respect to the total US budget.
3. NASA engineers are extremely competent.
4. You're a stupid troll who wouldn't know practical approaches to running a country from silly fantasies involving the free market.
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2. A billion dollars is relatively insignificant with respect to the total US budget.
As the saying goes ...
"A billion here and a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money. " --- Senator Everett Dirksen
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Holy crap, $1 *BILLION* dollars over budget? For the love of christ, now all you statist morons know why those of us with more than 2 brain cells to rub together flock to the flag of libertarianism. Private companies could have built and launched this telescope by now and probably would have been a billion UNDER budget. Instead, we give this work to incompetent government workers who wouldn't know a telescope from a hole in the ground. How pathetic. Another worthless government failure.
Private companies are building it
Space Battleship James Webb (Score:3, Funny)
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Ah, Slippery Jim DiGriz, she is attempting to have an illegal space battleship built on a backwoods planet.
I should have known, it's to large for a transport in this day and age ; ).
(Harry Harrison, Astounding, The Misplaced Battleship (1960)).
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From WP: The JWST's primary scientific mission has four main components: to search for light from the first stars and galaxies which formed in the Universe after the Big Bang, to study the formation and evolution of galaxies, to understand the formation of stars and planetary systems, and to study planetary systems and the origins of life.
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IAFAIUI, Hubble was instrumental (heh) in discovering the background radiation...
YDNUIVW. The answer is 350 miles lower than Hubble and a quarter century before its launch - New Jersey in 1964 [wikipedia.org]
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Simply, things that are so far away / moving away from us so fast that their light is doppler-shifted into the infrared.
Larger mirror than Hubble (or other previous infrared space telescopes, like Spitzer) means it can gather the light faster than them, or if it exposes for the same length as them, can see fainter objects.
And being in orbit means it doesn't have to worry about which infrared frequencies can make it through the atmosphere.
general question (Score:2, Interesting)
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Yes, that's standard accounting.
That being said, we're going to see a lot more nasty overruns over the next few years because of massive price increases over the last few years. NASA has been badly bitten by this once before, during the early/mid 70's when inflation soared - during the critical early years of Shuttle R&D.
It's NOT a Hubble successor (Score:5, Informative)
that they are both telescopes and both in space. JWST will look at infrared light between 600
and 28 000 nanometers, mostly way outside of the visible spectrum where Hubble makes its pictures.
We will learn a lot by those IR observations, that's for sure - but JWST does not replace Hubble, it
supplements it.
I really don't know how this "successor to Hubble" thing got started.
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IIRC I think the likely reason is that the Webb telescope is supposed to allow us to see even further into the 'deep field' region, to much higher red shifts, and consequently closer to the Big Bang. While I agree the Hubble has done many, many things besides that, in the Ultra Deep Field sense, it is the successor.
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First Sentence: http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/whois.html/ [nasa.gov]
ooooooh! It "passed" a "test" ! (Score:3, Interesting)
BEfore we wet our pants in excitement, let's remember:
* The Hubble passed a slew of design reviews too.
* Even so, it went up with many, many flaws, including:
* Electronics not shielded well enough to handle the South Atlantic Anomaly.
* Gyroscopes not qualified for the temperature cycles and SAA.
* Solar panels that oilcan buckle when going from sunlight to shade.
* Solar panel mount that does not go through the center of mass of the scope, so oilcan buckling causes the whole thing to oscillate.
* Unbalanced and uncushioned light cap that likewise shakes the whole thing when it's operated.
Although the new scope will have been checked against that list of problems, without major overhaul of the management structure, it's likely the same thing will happen this time.
Re:ooooooh! It "passed" a "test" ! (Score:5, Informative)
BEfore we wet our pants in excitement, let's remember:
* The Hubble passed a slew of design reviews too.
* Even so, it went up with many, many flaws, including:
* Electronics not shielded well enough to handle the South Atlantic Anomaly.
* Gyroscopes not qualified for the temperature cycles and SAA.
* Solar panels that oilcan buckle when going from sunlight to shade.
* Solar panel mount that does not go through the center of mass of the scope, so oilcan buckling causes the whole thing to oscillate.
* Unbalanced and uncushioned light cap that likewise shakes the whole thing when it's operated.
Although the new scope will have been checked against that list of problems, without major overhaul of the management structure, it's likely the same thing will happen this time.
Granted Hubble had many problems when it launched mainly because it was one of the first and most advanced general purpose observatories launched.
We have had tons of experience building space telescopes over the past 30 years since Hubble was designed and Hubble is the only one that is serviceable by the shuttle.
Just to list all the successful observatories since Hubble:
Infrared Space Observatory (Europe)
Chandra X-Ray observatory
Spitzer Space Telescope
WMAP
FUSE
Herschel Space Observatory (Mostly Europe)
Planck (Europe)
Suzaku X-Ray observatory (Japan)
and probably a few others I forgot about.
Bottom line, we know a lot about building space telescopes now, the doom and gloom you forecast is probably a bit over the top. Every project has problems, that's why we have brilliant engineers to find solutions.
Re:ooooooh! It "passed" a "test" ! (Score:4, Interesting)
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Actually it's unlikely since your pessimisim is ignoring the fact that the vast majority of space observatories have operated flawlessly.
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James Webb = NASA bureaucrat. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_E._Webb [wikipedia.org]
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Being 4 times farther from Earth than the Moon, JWST won't be serviceable once deployed. Certainly not using the Shuttle.
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Herschel and Planck are at L2 now. Spacecraft at L2 don't park exactly on the L2 point, which is unstable, but fly a "quasi-halo" orbit around it, and have propulsion systems that fire occasionally to keep them on the right orbit. The orbits about the L2 point are quite huge, and missions take other missions into account when planning to go there. The stable Lagrange points aren't good places to put spacecraft because other junk accumulates there and can cause collisions with space debris (i.e. rocks).
delivery? (Score:1)
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Timely article (Score:2, Interesting)
My last day at Goddard Space Flight Center was yesterday. (almost 10 years!) I finally got around to getting a friend to give me a tour of the Spacecraft Systems Design and Integration Facility, where I got to see JWST parts in the clean room. (heh, 20 minutes of gowning procedures for a 10 minute trip into the clean room.) Very, very cool. Gonna miss that place.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to follow JWST a lot more heavily now, too many friends are involved in it to ignore it as I have been.
(Sadly, for
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I'd love to see JWST. I used to work in astronomy at one of the universities involved in developing the CCD sensors for NIRCam and was around the prototype camera they built with the first few chips off Rockwell's fab, for testing on the terrestrial telescope I operated, but it's just not the same as seeing something that's going into space.
(Incidentally, that prototype camera was built around 2003ish. They wanted to be sure the chips worked well before launching.)
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No need to gown up. You can see pretty much everything from the viewing area on the second floor of Building 7.
Yes, I know, but something about the human spirit makes seeing it from the other side of the glass not quite as enjoyable as in person.
As long as you are a US citizen, your friends can badge you in at the front gate.
I'm not leaving the agency, just GSFC. I was, in fact, invited back next year when more interesting parts have been accumulated.
Demos are fun (Score:2)
From the article, "This month, ITT Corp. in Rochester, N.Y., demonstrated robotic mirror installation equipment designed to position segments on the backplane."
I'm pleased to say that I was one of the individuals giving that demo to the JWST review team :) And kudos to the team for assembling quite the system for integrating the segments.
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Now we just need to launch it.
I put the odds at less than 50% that it will launch but I am in a pessimistic mood.