Tag: James Webb Space Telescope

Space News for July 2022: Artemis 1 has completed its Wet Dress Rehearsal and has been given clearance for a launch as early as late August or early September.

Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) for a space system is a test intended to see if the rocket and all of its auxiliary systems can be fully loaded with fuel and oxidizer and if all of the electrical systems can be powered up and readied for flight. For the Space Launch System (SLS) the WDR also includes all the systems aboard the Orion man capable space capsule. In fact the WDR includes all of the steps that take place in an actual launch countdown right up to the last few seconds before ignition, usually about T minus thirty seconds. Back in April the Space Launch System, the rocket that NASA plans on taking American astronauts back to the Moon, failed to complete its WDR several times and had to be returned to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for repairs.

The Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) for the Space Launch System (SLS) with its Orion Man capable capsule. (Credit: NASA)

Those repairs were soon accomplished and once again the SLS was rolled out to Pad 39B at Kennedy for a second attempt at the WDR, which began on the 18th of June. Although there was a problem during the test with a leaky quick disconnect valve on the hydrogen intake to the rocket’s core stage the NASA engineers were able to work around the problem. The rocket itself went through the test without any difficulty and the WDR was concluded on June 20th and officially declared a success. According to the Artemis Mission Manager Mike Sarafin, “I would say we’re in the 90th percentile.”

The WDR now completed the SLS has been rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for final preparations before launch, now scheduled of August 19th! (Credit: SciTechDaily)

So the question was, is that good enough? After all of the years waiting for the SLS to be completed and tested, after all of the schedule delays and cost overruns, is 90% on the final exam good enough?

NASA hopes so, they have given the SLS a go ahead for a late August, early September launch of the Artemis 1 mission. A tentative launch date of August 19th has been announced. Although that flight will be unmanned it will be the first time since the Apollo program ended in 1972 that a man capable spacecraft will leave Earth orbit and travel to the Moon. And if Artemis 1 is successful then a manned Lunar orbiting mission can be expected to launch sometime in 2024.

Like the Apollo 8 mission in 1968 the Artemis 2 mission will be a Lunar Orbiter without a vehicle capable of landing. (Credit: eBay)

 Meanwhile there is a lot of news relating to robotic space exploration happening as well. One disappointing announcement was made on June 24 of 2022 concerning NASA’s Psyche mission to study that metal rich asteroid. Because of delays in the delivery of the spacecraft’s software and specially designed test fixtures the robotic probe will not be ready in time to launch during its August 1st though October 11th orbital window.

The Asteroid Psyche and Psyche Space Probe. Delays in software development and testing have forced a delay in the scheduled launch of Psyche, imperiling the entire mission. (Credit: SciTechDaily)

That leaves the entire mission sort of up in the air because the Psyche probe’s trajectory was planned to use a Mars fly-by as a gravity boost in order to reach the asteroid by 2026. There are possible launch windows for both 2023 and 2024 but they are far less optimal, the spacecraft would not reach Psyche until 2029 or 2030.

The Voyager 1 Space Probe got a gravity boost from the planet Jupiter on its way to Saturn. The Psyche space probe was designed to do the same thing using Mars as its booster but because of delays in the spacecraft’s launch the planet will no longer be in the the correct position for the boost. That will cause Psyche’s journey to the asteroid to be much longer. (Credit: Wikipedia)

So NASA is seriously considering the possibility of using the Psyche probe to study something else in our Solar System. The question is what, and would that actually help in making a successful mission. The problem of course is money; the entire Psyche mission was given an original budget of $985 million dollars, of which $717 million have already been spent. Can the Psyche team get the spacecraft completed and ready for a launch next year and still have enough money remaining for an eight-year long mission? Or, can they quickly find another target and get everything ready with the money remaining?

There are a lot of Asteroids out there that could be studied by the Psyche space probe. Perhaps Mars could give a gravity boost to one of them? (Credit: Wikipedia)

The Psyche mission is a part of NASA’s Discovery program, which was intended to develop programs that can accomplish real space science for less than a billion dollars. Therefore it is unlikely that any more funding will be forthcoming, the program managers at JPL will just have to make do with what they’ve got.

The Jet Propulsion Labouratory in California manages most planetary robotic missions for NASA. Being a bunch of bright guys they’ll figure something to do with the Psyche spacecraft. (Credit: Caltech International Offices)

Finally, the James Webb Space Telescope has been undergoing its instrument checkout and calibration before beginning it science mission, expected to start as early as this month. There was a moment of concern on the 8th of June when it was announced that a micrometeorite had struck Webb’s C3 mirror section. Such a collision had been expected several times during the space telescope’s ten-year mission and in fact four smaller impacts had already occurred but a collision of that size so early in the mission was surprising. Fortunately it wasn’t long before the science team managing Webb were confident that the small amount of damage caused by the micrometeorite would have no noticeable effect on the quality of Webb’s images.

Computer images of the damage caused by a micrometeorite (r) to JWST’s C3 mirror. The Left view is the system as it was designed. (Credit: Space.com)

Meanwhile the astronomical community is waiting with bated breath for those images, the quality of which according to NASA’s chief astronomer Thomas Zurbuchen nearly ‘brought him to tears’. It is anticipated that the first images from the Webb space telescope will be released on the 12th of July. Then perhaps we’ll all be agreeing with the opinion of the chief astronomer.

The first four images taken by the JWST have astronomers all over the world excited about what is to come. (Credit: Universe Today)

The Hubble Space telescope has revolutionized our view of the Universe and our place in it. I think that in the years to come the James Webb Space Telescope will accomplish much the same.

Space News for January 2022: The James Webb Space Telescope

Launched on Christmas day, the 25th of December 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope has so far performed flawlessly. For that launch the telescope’s enormous mirror and tennis court sized sunshield had to be folded up in order to fit inside the nose cone of the Arian 5 rocket. Once in outer space the unfolding and deployment of the various parts of the space telescope would constitute the most complex and delicate remote operation ever carried out by a spacecraft. Engineers involved spoke about Webb’s self-assembly as having thirty ‘single points of failure’. That is at thirty different places in its deployment process where if a failure occurred the $10 billion dollar telescope was simply a failure.

The Start of what is so far a perfect mission. The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope aboard an Arian 5 rocket from French Guiana. (Credit: The Guardian)

The launch itself was of course one of those single points. The Arian 5 rocket however has become the workhorse of the European Space Agency and it did its job of placing Webb not only into orbit but also on a trajectory for the L2 Lagrangian point on the other side of the Earth from the Sun. See my post of 6 January 2017 for a description of the Lagrangian points. From that location Webb will be in a stable position where it can use its sunshield to permanently protect its delicate instruments from the heat of the Sun.

To protect the telescope’s main mirror and instruments (top) from the Sun’s heat the James Webb Space Telescope sits atop five tennis court sized heat shields (bottom). (Credit: Extreme Tech)

And Webb’s Cameras and other instruments need to be shielded from the Sun because, unlike the Hubble space telescope the James Webb Space Telescope is designed to photograph astronomical objects in the infrared (IR) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Astronomers have for a long time wished for a large space telescope the operates in the IR which will allow them to be able to see through the gas clouds in our galaxy to the places where stars are being born or where the remnants of recent supernova explosions are hiding.

Visible Light is only a small portion of the Electromagnetic Spectrum. Observing the Universe in Infrared light is becoming more and more important in astronomy. (Credit: Quora)

Most importantly however, because of the expansion of the Universe, the light from the very first stars and galaxies has been ‘red-shifted’ so that they are invisible to Hubble. It is these first stars and galaxies that Webb is designed to study, giving astronomers for the first time observations of how the early universe went from the fiery chaos of the big bang to the myriad of astronomical objects we see today.

Objects that are moving away from us have their light shifted towards the red while objects moving at us have their light shifted towards the blue. This is called the Doppler effect and because of the expansion of the Universe objects that existed long ago have their light shifted all the way into the Infrared. (Credit: Byjus)

Shortly after its launch Webb deployed both its antennas and solar array in order for it to both have power and be able to communicate with its ground controllers. These two steps are necessary for nearly every space satellite however so even though a problem at either one of these steps could have led to a total failure engineers were confident that all would go well.

The James Webb space telescope all packed up and ready for launch. All of the various parts of the telescope had to be unfolded and deployed while the spacecraft was traveling to its final destination in space. (Credit: NASA)

The risky operations began with the unfurling and tightening of the five sheets that constituted the sunshield. Each sheet is about the size of a tennis court and made of highly reflective material. The five sheets are necessary not only to provide enough insulation to keep the instruments cool but also to act as protection for the telescope from micrometeorites. The control engineers at John’s Hopkins University in Baltimore took their time with the sunshield because such an operation had never before been attempted in space. The unfurling began on the third day after launch and took nearly a week in total.

The Control Room for the James Webb Space Telescope at John’s Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. (Credit: Phys.org)

Once the sunshield was fully deployed the next critical operation was the deployment of the telescope’s secondary mirror that sits out in front of the main mirror and reflects the light gathered by the main mirror back to where the telescope’s instruments are. The deployment of the secondary mirror occurred on day 11 and although the operation only took a few minutes you can be certain those were nerve wracking minutes for all of NASA for if the secondary mirror failed to lock into its proper position the entire telescope would be useless. The deployment of the secondary mirror went off without any problems however.

The secondary mirror (Right, Above) was one of the most critical steps in the setup of James Webb. After that the two main mirror side panels were also deployed. (Credit: BBC)

At this point only the deployment of the two side panels of the telescope’s main mirror remained to be accomplished. Each of the two side panels held three of the main mirror’s 18 hexagonal sections. The left side panel was successfully deployed on day 11 after launch while the right side panel was deployed the next day.

Once the two side panels were locked into position the riskiest part of the Webb’s deployment was accomplished and the NASA team who had built and launched the telescope could breath a sigh of relief. Nevertheless there’s still plenty to do before the telescope can begin its mission of observing the Universe. For one thing each of the 18 hexagonal main mirror sections have to be precisely focused by its own set of actuator motors in order for all of the sections to act together as one big mirror. This operation is no longer a single point of failure however for Webb can still operate even if a single mirror section is out of position.

On its long journey out to its L2 final destination the James Webb Space Telescope went though a large number of critical stages.(Credit: James Webb Space Telescope)

Nevertheless the launch and configuration in space of the James Webb Space Telescope has gone amazingly well so far. On the 25th of January the space telescope successfully reached its L2 home and is now exactly where its mission planners intended, another few months of instrument alignment and calibration and Webb will be ready to begin its mission. There is every reason to hope that it won’t be long before the Webb space telescope will be showing us parts of our Universe that we never imagined existed.

Space News for December 2021: More news about Space Stations and Astronomers get a new orbiting X-ray Telescope.

Space tourism is back in the news as Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, the founder and CEO of the e-commerce site Zozotown, has traveled to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Accompanying Maezawa was his own personal assistant and videographer Yozo Hirano who will film his boss’s activities during their 12-day stay in orbit. Unlike the Inspiration 4 tourist flight back in September, Maezawa’s mission also included the veteran Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin as pilot.

Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa (r) with his personal cameraman Yozo Hirano (l) and Russian Cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin (c) before takeoff to the ISS. (Credit: PCMag)

Maezawa’s visit to the ISS with his assistant makes eight non-professional, paying customers who have traveled into orbit this year, in addition to the four Inspiration 4 crewmembers there were also the Russian actress and her cameraman / producer back in October. That equals the total number of tourists who had ever flow into orbit before 2021 and is 40% of all the people who went into orbit this year. No matter how you look at it space tourism is now a significant portion of the space industry.

Russian Actress Yulia Peresild spent nearly two weeks aboard the ISS shooting scenes for the first feature film to be shot, partially in orbit! (Credit: CBS News)

Another sign of the growing importance of tourism and just general commercialization in space are the ongoing plans for future commercial space stations. NASA has made it clear that the space agency wants out of the business of running a space station in Low Earth Orbit. In order to move forward on the Artemis program going back to the Moon while maintaining a presence in LOE NASA has decided to help build a commercial space station that it could then rent space on.

Right now the fate of the ISS is very much up in the air. Scheduled to remain in orbit until about 2030 there is talk of sections being used for a new station or the whole thing might be brought down from orbit. (Credit: ESA)

To help finance this effort NASA has provided a combined $416 million dollars to three aerospace firms, Northrop Grumman, Blue Origins and Nanoracks corporations to fund the design phase of their space station efforts. The plan is for the space agency to choose one of the designs in 2025 and then help finance the construction of that commercial space station. NASA would then become one of the tenants of that station while other nations or corporations; even tourists could also be tenants. By the way NASA’s choosing one of the three designs doesn’t mean that the two rejected ones won’t get built. If the commercial space industry really takes off in the next half dozen years there may very well be a need for multiple space stations in LOE.

Illustration of Northrop Grumman’s plan for a commercial space station. NASA is helping to fund the design of this station and would be one of the tenants once the station is built. (Credit: Northrop Grumman Newsroom)

The current schedule is for the ISS continue to provide a home in LOE for astronauts until 2030 while the first modules of any new commercial space station would be launched in 2028 or 29. Nevertheless with China now building its own space station in orbit and the push for a commercial station it won’t be long before things start getting a mite crowded up there.

Blue Origin’s design for a station is called the Orbital Reef. It certainly is fancier than Northrop Grumman’s but in space that’s not always a good thing. (Credit: Spaceflight Now)

Of course LOE isn’t only occupied by space stations, in fact there are thousands of unmanned satellites circling our globe right now, many of them are commercial in nature, like communication satellites. Then there are the satellites designed to look back at the Earth, to study it from a height. These include both weather satellites and landsats.

Then there are the space telescopes designed to study the rest of the universe from outside the limiting effects of Earth’s atmosphere. The most famous of these space telescopes is of course the Hubble space telescope, which has revolutionized astronomy in the years since it was launched. But there are others like the Kepler planet hunting telescope or the Chandra X-ray telescope.

Perhaps the most famous satellite since Sputnik, the Hubble telescope has revolutionized our view of the Universe. (Credit: Business Insider)

On the 8th of December a new X-ray telescope was launched into orbit from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a Space X Falcon 9 rocket. At a cost of $188 million dollars the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer or IXPE telescope may not be as newsworthy as the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch on the 25nd of December. Nevertheless in its own way IXPE will have many opportunities to add to our knowledge of such high-energy astrophysical objects as black holes, pulsars and magnetars.

The Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer or IXPE Space Telescope will peer deeply into the heart of astronomical objects such as black holes and pulsars. (Credit: Semantic Scholar)
Launched aboard a Space X Falcon 9 rocket the IXPE telescope took off from Kennedy Space Center on December 8th. (Credit: NASAspaceflight.com)

You see the difference between IXPE and the Chandra X-ray telescope is that IXPE measures the polarization of the X-rays it detects. All light, whether visible or X-rays or radio waves have an amplitude that can either go up and down or side to side as the wave travels through space. This is the polarization of the light, either vertical, up and down, or horizontal, side to side.

Most of the light in the Universe is unpolarized, that is made of of many different polarizations. Certain materials only allow a distinct polarization to pass through. This allows scientists to study the conditions under which the light is generated. (Credit: ScienceFacts.net)

In most cases, say the light from the Sun, there is a random mixture of polarizations. Calculations in both quantum electrodynamics and general relativity however tell us that in certain very intense regions, strong magnetic or gravitational fields, the X-rays that are generated should be polarized in certain ways. Therefore by measuring the polarization of the X-rays coming from just outside a black hole’s event horizon, or from the surface of a pulsar IXPE will be able to give astronomers new details about the conditions there.

The first ever image of a black hole. The IXPE telescope will look at the light coming from just outside the event horizon of black holes hopefully revealing some of their secrets. (Credit: NASA)

Every time astronomers look at the Universe in a new way they’ve discovered new details that profoundly changed our knowledge. One can only hope that IXPE, and James Webb when it finally begins operation, will revolutionize astronomy the way that Hubble and Chandra and Kepler already have.’

Launch of the James Webb Space Telescope of Christmas day. Although the launch went perfectly the JWST still has more than a month of travel and several complicated, and critical instrument deployments to carry out before it can be called a complete success. (Credit: Science)

And hopefully astronomers will soon have an even more powerful tools for learning about the Universe as on Christmas day at 1220 GMT the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was successfully launched from French Guyana aboard an Arian 5 rocket. Now I just said that the launch was successful but the JWST still has a lot of complicated maneuvers to complete before it can begin its work of discovery. I intend to discuss the JWST at length in a post in another month or two so, for the moment I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that the telescope’s deployment continues to be a success. 

Space News for April 2020.

Like everything else nowadays even developments in space exploration are being impacted by the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. With the disease spreading like wildfire even NASA hasn’t been spared with personnel at both Cape Kennedy and the Manned Spaceflight Center in Houston having been tested as positive for the virus. In fact the need for ‘Social Distancing’ by the space agency’s personnel has seriously affected, if not actually brought to a halt the work on nearly every NASA program.

This includes the final tests and preparations for the James Webb space telescope, which was due to be launched just a year from now in March of 2021. The space telescope itself is currently in California where it had been undergoing its final assembly and testing. However California’s governor has ordered that all ‘non-essential’ workers remain at home so the entire effort on NASA’s largest unmanned program has come to a complete halt. How much of a delay this will add to the already behind schedule launch of the Webb telescope is impossible to say at present.

Shortly after this last unfolding test of the main mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope all work was halted due to the threat of Covid-19. (Credit: Space News)

However there are other programs that simply cannot be put on hold for one reason or another. The new Mars rover, recently given the name ‘Perseverance’ is perhaps the best example of this. You see the spacecraft’s launch window, the period of time when Mars is in the right position relative to Earth in the Solar system for a spacecraft to reach it, is only open during July and August of this year. If Perseverance doesn’t launch during that time frame then the mission will have to be delayed for a full 26 months until the next window opens in late 2022.

Technicians in Florida working on the Perseverance Mars rover can’t stop work. The rover has to launch in July or August! (Credit: CNN.com)

Because of that hard deadline NASA personnel are working around the clock on the final preparations for the spacecraft’s launch. Fortunately Perseverance has already been delivered to Cape Kennedy and is now undergoing prelaunch assembly but there’s still a considerable amount of work remaining. And even with the threat of a covid-19 shutdown looming over their work the technicians at Kennedy still have to do a meticulous, almost perfect job, anything less could compromise the success of the entire mission.

Part of the preparations for Perseverance’s launch included the last test here on Earth of the little drone helicopter that will accompany Perseverance down to the Martian surface. Before being packed into the rover vehicle for its long trip the helicopter’s two rotor blades were spun at 50 RPM on a test stand, the last time they will spin before they do so in the thin Martian atmosphere. While the helicopter is not considered an integral part of the Perseverance mission, officially it is referred to as a technology demonstration, if successful the little drone will take the first flight of any manmade object on another planet.

Final test of the little Helicopter that will travel to Mars aboard the Perseverance Rover. It’s now got to be packed up and made ready to go! (Credit: NASA JPL)

Another mission that could be delayed because of Covid-19 is Space X’s long anticipated first manned mission to the International Space Station (ISS). It was only a few weeks ago that Space X announced that this long awaited first manned mission of their Dragon capsule would take place the second week of May. That time frame however could very well put the mission right at the peak of the pandemic in Florida! Since this first mission of NASA’s commercial crew program is already more than two years behind schedule perhaps the wisest course at present would be to just delay the mission until well after the pandemic has run its course, until September or even later.

An unmanned Space X crew Dragon docking at the ISS. The first manned mission is scheduled for May but will Covid-19 cause a delay? (Credit: Space News)

Speaking of the ISS, what happens to the astronauts who are aboard the station if Cape Kennedy has to be shut down because of the pandemic?  While the astronauts themselves may be safe from Covid-19 their supply chain is definitely threatened by the situation here on Earth. All of the countries that are capable of resupplying the ISS are dealing with severe coronavirus outbreaks that may limit their ability to launch unmanned supply ships.

The Crew aboard the ISS may be safe from any viruses but what about their supply link with Earth? (Credit: NASA)

No doubt if the supply situation on the ISS should become critical then either the US or Russia would certainly, and ‘carefully’ assemble a resupply mission, but what if that launch should fail? In any case there is certainly a great risk that the normal operations of the ISS will be curtailed because of the virus.

The expedition 63 crew to the ISS was just launched from Russia after a prolonged quarantine period to make certain they weren’t infected with Covid-19 (Credit: NASA)

All of this is just another sign of how much the coronavirus outbreak is now dominating almost every aspect of human life, and not just here on Earth.