The $10 billion project James Webb Space Telescope is on the verge of unfolding and tightening its gigantic sunshade. If the deployment goes well, the operation should be complete by Wednesday. Unfortunately, a few glitch issues might delay the schedule.
James Webb Telescope: Solar Powered Observatory
For reference, the James Webb Space Telescope is one of the most complex and expensive space projects that NASA has ever accomplished. This new space observatory is considered to be the successor of the decades-old Hubble Space Telescope. James Webb is expected to be 100 times more powerful than its predecessor.
However, before it could live up to expectations, James Webb needs to complete its deployment procedure. This means positioning itself against the Sun, unfolding its main body and sunshade, as well as running its systems. Unfortunately, ground controllers encountered a few problems during the process.
James Webb Telescope Glitch and Issues
According to ABC News, the ground controllers in Maryland experienced two big issues with James Webb's deployment.
Experts said they had to reset James Webb's solar panels to draw out more power during the unfolding process. They clarified that the space observatory was never in any real danger because it was equipped with constant power flow. However, the ground controllers did not elaborate on how they fixed this particular issue.
Afterward, experts also had to repoint the telescope to a better angle. This limits the sunlight touching James Webb's body, which caused overheating problems to six of its motors. After the motors cooled enough, ground controllers restarted the space observatory's deployment process.
Its sunshield is expected to be fully deployed in three days. However, the entire process can be halted if the same problems arise again.
Researchers emphasized that they hope the sunshield deployment will be "drama-free." They said "the best thing for operations is boring," so they hope the next three days will be "boring" too, per ABC News.
James Webb Telescope Photo
Many space fans and researchers closely monitor the historical achievements of James Webb. In fact, one astronomer spotted the space observatory from Earth. Gianluca Masi recorded his discovery in a photo and video, which he later shared to the internet.
Both the video and photo of James Webb moving through space are found on The Virtual Telescope Project website.
Masi captured James Webb using a PlaneWave 17-inch robot telescope. The camera recognized the observatory because of its sharp movements in the sky. James Webb was approximately 740,000 km miles from Earth at the imaging time, which is still a long way from its final destination.
James Webb is expected to reach its destination, a point in space 1.6 million km away from Earth, by the end of January. It should officially begin its operations by the end of June.
As previously mentioned, James Webb is still in the middle of a dangerous mission in space. More updates on its deployment sequence should be available in the coming days.
