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The James Webb Space Telescope

 
 
 
Primary Mirror Deployment Has Begun – James Webb Space Telescope
The team is beginning today with the mirror wing on the port (left) side of the observatory. Engineers must first release mechanisms that held the wing in place for launch, in order to allow the wing to deploy. The panel then rotates into position, a motor-driven process that takes about five minutes. Once the wing is extended, engineers begin a meticulous, two-hour process to securely latch it into place.
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The team plans to work on the other wing, the starboard (right) one, tomorrow.

NASA Webb Telescope on Twitter: "It’s what we’ve all been waiting for: ..." / Twitter
NASA Webb Telescope on Twitter: "It’s what we’ve all been waiting for: The James Webb Space Telescope will soon spread its primary mirror wings!

Today we begin with the mirror wing on the port (left) side of the observatory. This process should take a few hours: (link) #UnfoldTheUniverse (pic link)

Don't miss the buzz when Webb’s iconic primary mirror is revealed in all of its honeycomb glory. 🐝

Watch coverage of our final mirror wing deployment LIVE on social media and NASA TV no earlier than 9am ET (14:00 UTC) on Jan. 8: (link) #UnfoldTheUniverse (pic link)
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First of Two Primary Mirror Wings Unfolds – James Webb Space Telescope
The process of deploying the port side mirror wing began at approximately 8:36 a.m. EST. At approximately 2:11 p.m. EST, engineers confirmed that the panel was fully secured and locked into place, and the deployment was complete.
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The total time: 5h 35m

NASA Webb Telescope on Twitter: "Nope, we’re not just winging it! But we did successfully deploy and latch the first of our two primary mirror wings. 😎 These side panels, folded back for launch, each hold 3 of Webb’s 18 mirror segments. Next up: our final wing! (link) #UnfoldTheUniverse (pic link)" / Twitter

NASA will be broadcasting the unfolding of the remaining mirror wing on Saturday Jan 8, starting no earlier than 9 am EST, and with a press conference about the deployment no earlier than 1:30 pm EST.

NASA on Twitter: "On Jan. 8, @NASAWebb will fully deploy its primary mirror, marking the end of the most complex space telescope deployment in history. Watch live coverage from mission control starting at ~9am ET (14:00 UTC): (link)

Drop expert questions below!
#UnfoldTheUniverse (pic link)" / Twitter
noting
NASA to Host Coverage, Briefing for Webb Telescope’s Final Unfolding | NASA
 
The JWST is wired up with plenty of sensors, but there is an additional way that the JWST's operators can follow the spacecraft's deployments. Though its mass will not change, its mass distribution will change, and it is possible to observe the effects of that, like if one tries to spin the telescope.

Here is how to calculate the moments of inertia in full generality. One starts by constructing an integral for the spacecraft's mass:

\( \displaystyle{ M = \int dM = \int \rho \, dx^3 } \)

The centroid is located at

\( \displaystyle{ \bar x_i = \frac{1}{M} \int x_i \, dM } \)

and the moment-of-inertia tensor is

\( \displaystyle{ I_{ij} = \int (x^2 \delta_{ij} - x_i x_j) \, dM } \)

where the coordinate origin is at the centroid. In full generality, moment of inertia is a "tensor", a sort of double vector. A n-tuple of vectors gives an n-tensor, with this tensor being a 2-tensor, a vector itself being a 1-tensor and a scalar (no direction) being a 0-tensor.
 
One measures the JWST's moments of inertia by making it rotate and seeing how it responds.

(angular momentum) = (offset) x (momentum)
(torque) = (offset) x (force)

Since (force) = d/dt (momentum), (torque) = d/dt (angular momentum)

Also, (angular momentum) = (moment of inertia) . (angular velocity)

where (angular velocity) = rate of change of a angle, her an orientation angle.

The JWST has three ways of making itself rotate:
  • Reaction wheels
  • Small thrusters (mini rocket engines) -- they make off-center thrust
  • Its aft momentum flap -- uses solar radiation pressure
Reaction wheels work by conservation of angular momentum. Spin them one direction and the rest of the JWST spins in the opposite direction.
 
Starboard Primary Mirror Wing Deployment Underway – James Webb Space Telescope

NASA on Twitter: "The honeycomb is almost complete!
Tune in at around ~9am ET (14:00 UTC) as our @NASAWebb team unfolds the final wing of Webb's massive primary mirror: (link)
#UnfoldTheUniverse (pic link)" / Twitter
Showing the JWST with its primary mirror deployed but with its secondary mirror stowed and without its sunshield.

NASA Webb Telescope on Twitter: "We are GO ..." / Twitter
We are GO for #NASAWebb’s final mirror wing deployment this morning! Here’s what you should expect:

🔲 Fire pins to release mirror wing
🔲 Unfold mirror
🔲 Latch the wing (2+ hours) ⏱
🔲 🥳🕺🏽🎉
🔲 #UnfoldTheUniverse! (5+ months) ✨
More: (links)

✅ Click! We just fired the last 4 of #NASAWebb's 178 release mechanisms, or pins — all of which had to work perfectly for this unfolding to take place. These 4 will release the restraints that held Webb's mirror wing safely in place during launch. #UnfoldTheUniverse

🚗 Folks, start your engines!

As the #NASAWebb team gets ready to deploy the second primary mirror wing from @SpaceTelescope, they just completed a small motor checkout movement, ensuring the wing is ready to go. #UnfoldTheUniverse

Thanks to our mission control team at @SpaceTelescope, the second primary wing is now moving into place. #NASAWebb's honeycomb mirror will soon take on its iconic shape! ⬢ #UnfoldTheUniverse

✅ The final wing is now deployed! Before we celebrate, we’ve still got work to do. The team is working hard at @SpaceTelescope to latch the wing into place, a multi-hour process. When the final latch is secure, #NASAWebb will be fully unfolded in space. #UnfoldTheUniverse (vid link)

📺 We’ll be right back with more commentary soon!

While we wait, head out into the lobby and grab your popcorn and soda. 🍿

And we're back!

As a reminder: latching Webb's final wing will take 2+ hours. Sometimes, science can feel slow, but slow and steady is how we #UnfoldTheUniverse! Our team is meticulously & remotely latching the mirror into place. Gotta latch ‘em all!

NASA Webb Telescope on Twitter: "As we just heard our Webb optics manager Lee Feinberg explain on our live broadcast, Webb's mirrors did a *lot* of traveling before they made it to space!

🔎 Take a look: (link)
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As I write this, the latching is almost done.
 
Journey of the Mirrors, MirrorMap WEBB/NASA - the 18 primary mirror segments went a long way before they got off of our planet.

Here is a summary: journey_mirrors_flyer.pdf
  1. Mining of beryllium ore in Brush Wellman Inc.’s mine in the Topaz-Spor Mountains of Utah, refining beryllium powder, making beryllium powder.
  2. Brush Wellman’s facility in Elmore, Ohio: casting of the mirror-segment blanks.
  3. Axsys Technologies in Cullman, Alabama: making a honeycomb structure in the back of each mirror to save weight without compromising strength.
  4. L3 Communications, Tinsley Laboratories in Richmond, California: polishing the mirrors into shape.
  5. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado: mounts, actuators attached; vibration, optical testing.
  6. X-ray and Cryogenic Facility (XRCF) in Huntsville, Alabama: testing in cold and vacuum.
  7. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado: remove mounts, actuators.
  8. L3 Communications, Tinsley Laboratories at Richmond, California: using cold-test results to improve the shapes of the mirrors.
  9. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado: clean mirrors in preparation for coating.
  10. Quantum Coating, Inc., Moorestown, New Jersey: gold deposited on mirrors in vacuum.
  11. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado: mounts, actuators reattached; final vibration testing.
  12. X-ray and Cryogenic Facility (XRCF) in Huntsville, Alabama: final cryogenic acceptance testing.
  13. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland: assembly of the telescope; acoustic, vibration tests.
  14. NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas: final cryogenic testing of the whole telescope.
  15. Northrop Grumman, Redondo Beach, California: integration of the telescope proper with the spacecraft bus and sunshield.
  16. Guiana Space Centre, Kourou, French Guiana: launch atop an Ariane 5 rocket.
So the mirrors were sent back and forth quite a lot before they were sent on their way to their final destination.

Two weeks after the JWST's launch and two weeks to its destination, the spacecraft is 3/4 of the way to L2, nearly 3 times the distance to the Moon. L2 itself is nearly 4 times the distance to the Moon.
 
Primary Mirror Wings Deployed, All Major Deployments Complete – James Webb Space Telescope
"Now that the telescope is structurally fully deployed – with the secondary mirror tripod and both primary mirror wings in place – the three-month process of aligning all of Webb’s telescope optics into a precise system can now commence."

Noting NASA’s Webb Telescope Reaches Major Milestone as Mirror Unfolds | NASA

Continuing the earlier Twitter thread,
NASA Webb Telescope on Twitter: "As we just heard ..." / Twitter
As we just heard our Webb optics manager Lee Feinberg explain on our live broadcast, Webb's mirrors did a *lot* of traveling before they made it to space!

🔎 Take a look: (link)

👋 We agree with Julie — you can come from any field to help #UnfoldTheUniverse!
-the social media team 💛
(vid link) - (a snippet of an interview)

We’re getting ready for the very last move command! You know what they say: don’t count your mirror wings before they latch.

✅ #NASAWebb is ready for its next steps! After it reaches Lagrange point 2, it will take ~5 months to cool down, align its mirrors & calibrate its instruments before the science begins: (link) #UnfoldTheUniverse
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NASA Webb Telescope on Twitter: "#NASAWebb is fully deployed! 🎉

With the successful deployment & latching of our last mirror wing, that's:
50 major deployments, complete.
178 pins, released.
20+ years of work, realized.

Next to #UnfoldTheUniverse: traveling out to our orbital destination of Lagrange point 2! (pic link)" / Twitter
 
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NASA on Twitter: "Congratulations, @NASAWebb! You are fully deployed! 🥳 Stay tuned over the coming months as the space telescope reaches its destination of Lagrange point 2 and prepares to #UnfoldTheUniverse: (vid link)" / Twitter
(video of the JWST's operators celebrating the complete deployment of that space telescope)

Space Telescope Science Institute on Twitter: "Celebrations around the #NASAWebb Mission Operations Center at STScI! We have a telescope in space! Thank you to everyone for your support for this mission. #UnfoldTheUniverse (pix link)" / Twitter

NASA on Twitter: "LIVE: @NASAWebb has completed the final stage of spacecraft deployment to #UnfoldTheUniverse. Mission experts discuss today's major milestone. (link)" / Twitter
noting
News Update on James Webb Space Telescope's Full Deployment / Twitter

I watched that press conference. I remember someone asking about single points of failure. About 35 of them remain, and will remain for the length of the mission, like failure of the attitude-control rockets. About 12 of them are in the instruments, like of a filter wheel.

Some of the questions were naive, like asking if NASA could skip the rocket-engine burn at L2. It can't, because without it, it will return to near the Earth. It needs a kick to stay in high orbit. It's what geosynchronous satellites need:  Apogee kick motor

NASA HQ PHOTO on Twitter: "#NASAWebb completed all of its major deployments & is ready for its next steps! #UnfoldTheUniverse More 📷 (links)" / Twitter
noting
20220108 JWST Unfolding | Flickr

Canadian Space Agency on Twitter: "Wow! 🤩 #Webb is now fully deployed! Congratulations to everyone involved. We can’t wait to see what the telescope has in store for the international astronomy community!" / Twitter
 
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That box beneath the telescope assembly:
Spacecraft Bus Webb/NASA
The spacecraft bus provides the necessary support functions for the operation of the Webb Observatory. At left is a top view of the bus.

The bus is the home for six major subsystems:
  • Electrical Power Subsystem
  • Attitude Control Subsystem
  • Communication Subsystem
  • Command and Data Handling Subsystem
  • Propulsion Subsystem
  • Thermal Control Subsystem
Click to expand...

Beneath? That is the usual location of it when it was being worked on before it was launched. But in outer space, "up" and "down" don't have much meaning, and that's why we see spacecraft upside-down in some pictures.

Fun fact: the Space Shuttle went into orbit upside down. But before returning, it became normally oriented.

I recall an account of an astronaut who resided in the Skylab space station of the 1970's. He recalled getting very confused about direction. The bulk of Skylab was a Saturn V third stage, with the Apollo Telescope Mount on top of it. He recalled "up" being toward the ATM, but in the ATM itself, "up" was sideways. This was despite Skylab having essentially zero gravity inside of it.

I don't know how ISS residents handle orientation.

A lot of visual-media science fiction is very naive about spacecraft orientation.

I remember going to a Star Trek convention many years ago and someone replayed an interview with Gene Roddenberry about features of Star Trek TOS. Why no spacecraft upside down? That was to avoid confusing Earthbound viewers. Likewise for audible explosions -- without sound, people would be asking what happened to the sound.

Star Wars Star Destroyers seem much like water-surface ships -- a lot of weaponry on one side and not very much on the other side. The Star Destroyers also have high-perched command centers much like water-surface ships, when one might expect them to be buried inside.
 
JWST Momentum Management - JWST User Documentation
During science observations, the observatory will be pointed at a target, in an orientation at which the sun shield center of pressure is not aligned with the observatory center of mass. As solar photons hit the large sun shield, they place a torque on the observatory as a whole. The attitude control subystem (ACS) counteracts this torque by appropriately changing the spin rate on the reaction wheels, with the consequence that angular momentum accumulates in the reaction wheels. Momentum accumulation depends on the solar pitch angle, the roll orientation of the telescope, and the visit duration at a particular pointing position. The angular momentum (spin rate) of the reaction wheels must be managed to be kept within operational limits.
Click to expand...
When the reaction wheels are spinning too fast, then the spacecraft counteracts that by firing some small attitude-control engines.

It also has its aft momentum flap that uses radiation pressure for that purpose.

NASA - YouTube

Some acronyms:
  • MOC = Mission Operation Center
  • MOM = Mission Operation Manager
 
lpetrich said:
That box beneath the telescope assembly:
Spacecraft Bus Webb/NASA
The spacecraft bus provides the necessary support functions for the operation of the Webb Observatory. At left is a top view of the bus.

The bus is the home for six major subsystems:
  • Electrical Power Subsystem
  • Attitude Control Subsystem
  • Communication Subsystem
  • Command and Data Handling Subsystem
  • Propulsion Subsystem
  • Thermal Control Subsystem
Click to expand...

Beneath? That is the usual location of it when it was being worked on before it was launched. But in outer space, "up" and "down" don't have much meaning, and that's why we see spacecraft upside-down in some pictures.

Fun fact: the Space Shuttle went into orbit upside down. But before returning, it became normally oriented.

I recall an account of an astronaut who resided in the Skylab space station of the 1970's. He recalled getting very confused about direction. The bulk of Skylab was a Saturn V third stage, with the Apollo Telescope Mount on top of it. He recalled "up" being toward the ATM, but in the ATM itself, "up" was sideways. This was despite Skylab having essentially zero gravity inside of it.

I don't know how ISS residents handle orientation.

A lot of visual-media science fiction is very naive about spacecraft orientation.

I remember going to a Star Trek convention many years ago and someone replayed an interview with Gene Roddenberry about features of Star Trek TOS. Why no spacecraft upside down? That was to avoid confusing Earthbound viewers. Likewise for audible explosions -- without sound, people would be asking what happened to the sound.

Star Wars Star Destroyers seem much like water-surface ships -- a lot of weaponry on one side and not very much on the other side. The Star Destroyers also have high-perched command centers much like water-surface ships, when one might expect them to be buried inside.
Click to expand...
Almost all spacecraft in Science Fiction are just oceangoing ships that happen to be in space. They look like oceangoing ships, navigate like oceangoing ships, and fight two dimensional battles like oceangoing ships.

The exceptions are 'space fighters', which typically use the third dimension but stay tied to a two dimensional reference - they behave like naval carrier based aircraft, and use the larger spaceships just like oceangoing aircraft carriers.

I suspect that most humans have a very hard time getting their heads around the absence of a gravitational field and/or of a surface approximately orthogonal to that field, when thinking tactically. Even if SciFi authors did accurately depict this absence, their audiences would become confused and wouldn't like it.

Indeed, this failure to think tactically in the vertical dimension is well understood in real life Earthbound tactics - ambushing a patrol by dropping from the trees or emerging from a tunnel is highly effective because people tend to scan in the horizontal plane, and are disinclined to consider threats above or below unless explicitly trained to do so.
 
More on moments of inertia:
 List of moments of inertia -- Wikipedia is full of lists
(Moment of inertia for an offset object) = (Moment of inertia for a point mass at the object's centroid's location) + (Moment of inertia of that object relative to its centroid)

I recall that the sunshield deployment was checked using moments of inertia. That may not work for the sunshields themselves, but it should work for the sunshields' support structures, and it should also work for the primary and secondary mirror structures.

As to how an object rotates, one solves  Euler's equations (rigid body dynamics) giving  Precession

For all moments equal, the angular velocity is constant in the external frame and in the object frame.

For two moments equal, the angular velocity is constant in the external frame but the two axes for the equal moments may have periodic variation.

For all three moments different (triaxial), the angular velocities in the object frame are some complicated functions: "elliptic functions". I once tried finding an external-frame solution, without any success.

With external torques, like from tidal effects or radiation pressure, one can get chaotic precession: tumbling.


As to how to represent a spacecraft's attitude or orientation in space, that has some interesting mathematics. In general, one uses a rotation matrix, a 3*3 matrix for going from the spacecraft's internal coordinates to external coordinates. This is "orthonormal", meaning that it satisfies certain constraints that are necessary for a rotation matrix.

One can represent a rotation matrix with a set of three angles, "Euler angles", each of which is for a rotation about some axis. There are various conventions for Euler angles, which I won't get into. But Euler angles suffer from "coordinate singularities", like how longitudes are ambiguous at the Earth's north and south poles, so something else is often used: quaternions. These were invented in the mid 19th cy. as a generalization of complex numbers, and these may be interpreted as 4-vectors with a certain multiplication law, much like treating complex numbers as 2-vectors. One can express rotation matrices as something like squares of quaternions, and the only constraint on the quaternions is their having unit length, something much easier to do than with the matrices themselves.

Quaternions are widely used not only for spacecraft control, but also in 3D graphics and animation, including many video games.


William Harwood on Twitter: "JWST: A very interesting update from Mike Menzel, NASA mission systems engineer: thanks to the accuracy of the Ariane 5 launch and two ultra-precise trajectory correction burns, Webb should have enough propellant, roughly speaking, to operate "around 20 years;" exact numbers TBD" / Twitter
 
Yes, Where Is Webb? NASA/Webb - it does both English and metric units.

Deployment Explorer Webb/NASA
The next event will be moving the mirror segments from their launch positions. Each primary-mirror segment has 6 actuators, as does the secondary mirror. Each primary-mirror segment also has an actuator for controlling the curvature, by moving the segment center inward or outward.

It's currently planned for 17 to 27 days after launch, or Jan 11 to 21. Two days later, the JWST's rockets will fire to get it into its L2 orbit.

Webb has two types of rocket thrusters. One kind is called "Secondary Combustion Augmented Thrusters" (SCAT), and they are used for orbit correction (like applied changes in velocity for each maneuver the spacecraft makes and also for orbit station-keeping). Webb has two pairs of them (paired for redundancy). They use hydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide, as fuel and oxidizer respectively, which makes SCAT what engineers call a "bi-propellant" thruster. The other kind of thruster on Webb is called a MRE-1, or mono-propellant rocket engine, since it only uses hydrazine. There are eight MRE-1s on Webb, and they are used for attitude control and momentum unloading of the reaction wheels.
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noting
JWST Propulsion - JWST User Documentation
and
JWST Attitude Control Subsystem - JWST User Documentation

Hydrazine - N2H4
Dinitrogen tetroxide - N2O4 ~ 2*NO2

The reactions:
SCAT (orbit maneuvers): 2*N2H4 + N2O4 -> 3*N2 + 4*H2O
MRE (attitude/orientation control): N2H4 -> N2 + 2*H2

(hydrazine or similar) + (nitrogen tetroxide or similar) is a common propellant combination, because both propellants are liquid at room temperature, making them easier to store. Such combinations are also often "hypergolic", meaning that they ignite at room temperature, meaning that they don't need some igniter, making rocket engines for them simpler.
 
NASA Webb Telescope on Twitter: "As we continue our million mile (1.5 million km) journey out to our orbit, we'd just like to thank each of you for following us as we #UnfoldTheUniverse! You're all one in a million (miles) in our hearts ❤️ (pic link)" / Twitter

Following the Next Steps in Webb’s Journey – James Webb Space Telescope
In the next two weeks, we will move each of the 18 primary mirror segments, and the secondary mirror, out of their launch positions. Then five months of commissioning will include 1) further cooling of the entire observatory, and of the Mid-Infrared Instrument in particular, 2) checking and then aligning the secondary and 18 mirror segments into a single coherent optical system, first with the NIRCam instrument and then with all instruments individually and in parallel, and 3) calibrating of each of the four instruments and their many scientific modes.
Click to expand...

NASA Webb Telescope on Twitter: "❄️ Now that our deployments are complete, ..." / Twitter
❄️ Now that our deployments are complete, just like our telescope, we’re entering a period of cooldown. Our updates will be less frequent, but that doesn’t mean things have stopped happening: (link) Thread ⬇️ (pic link)

First, what do we mean by “cooldown”? If you’ve been checking the temperatures of our “cold side” at (link), you can see we’re still a ways off from our operating temperatures of less than 50 Kelvin (about -370° F, or -223° C).

The deployment of our sunshield helped a lot with quickly lowering the temperatures on the cold side, but further cooling down will take place more slowly over time. The sunshield helps to passively cool Webb, meaning the optics get cold solely by being in the shade. 🌡

Our Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) needs to be especially cold: only 7 Kelvin (about -447° F, or -266° C)! Luckily, it’s got a special refrigerator — a cryocooler — for the job, which uses active cooling: (link)

More: (links)

In the next two weeks, we’ll get into orbit. We'll also start moving each of the 18 segments of our primary mirror, as well as our secondary mirror, out of their launch positions. This will serve as a precursor to aligning our mirrors once they’ve cooled down!

Aligning our mirrors is no easy task, but it will allow us to be very precise. Using tiny motors, we can align our primary mirror segments to 1/10,000th the thickness of a human hair.

Then once we’ve cooled down and aligned our mirrors, we still have to calibrate each of our 4 scientific instruments: NIRCam, NIRSpec, MIRI, & FGS/NIRISS. What do each of those acronyms mean, and what do these instruments do? Start here: (link)

At the end of this 5+ month process, we’ll be ready for science! We can’t wait for our first science images, expected in summer. Here’s where you can find us besides @NASAWebb 👇

Track Webb: (link)
Blog: (link) (will update weekly) (pic link)
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NASA’s Webb Telescope Will Have the Coolest Camera in Space - about how MIRI will be supercold: 7 K

Cryocooler Webb/NASA
Passive Cooling

Three of Webb's four scientific instruments "see" both the reddest of visible light as well as near-infrared light (light with wavelengths from 0.6 microns to 5 microns). These instruments have detectors formulated with Mercury-Cadium-Telluride (HgCdTe), which work ideally for Webb at 37 kelvin. We can get them this cold in space "passively," simply by virtue of Webb's design, which includes a tennis court-sized sunshield.

Active Cooling

However, Webb's fourth scientific instrument, the Mid-infrared Instrument, or MIRI, "sees" mid-infrared (MIR) light at wavelengths from 5 to 28 microns. By necessity MIRI's detectors are a different formulation (Arsenic-doped Silicon (Si:As)), which need to be at a temperature of less than 7 kelvin to operate properly. This temperature is not possible on Webb by passive means alone, so Webb carries a "cryocooler" that is dedicated to cooling MIRI's detectors.
Click to expand...
Then about details of that cryocooler. like
  • the precooler uses three stages of pulse-tube cooling vs. heritage systems that have only two stages, and
  • the separation between precooler and the JT cooling hardware; typically this separation is centimeters, not several meters.
Click to expand...
 
Instruments and ISIM (Integrated Science Instrument Module) Webb/NASA
Click to expand...
The primary mirror is 6.5 meters across, while the Hubble Space Telescope's primary mirror is 2.4 meters across.
 
Where Is Webb? at NASA
Over 80% of the distance to its destination, and a little over half the total travel time.

What you need to know: lots of links about JWST
JWST News at NASA
JWST blog at NASA

NASA Space Communications and Navigation on Twitter: "🤔How do we “talk” with @NASAWebb?

🚀Launch was a team effort including @NASA's @NearSpaceNet, @esa, and NASA's Deep Space Network.

📡As the spacecraft travels to L2, nearly 1 million miles from Earth, the #DSN will continue enabling communications.

(links)" / Twitter

That's why I overheard handing over from Canberra to Madrid.

NASA Webb Telescope on Twitter: "#10YearChallenge

Through all of the James Webb Space Telescope’s progress, we’ve always had a stellar team to #UnfoldTheUniverse. ❤️ ✨ (pix link)" / Twitter

NASA Webb Telescope on Twitter: ""Just because we made it look easy doesn't mean it was easy." - Bill Ochs, #NASAWebb project manager

Relive the historic moment the James Webb Space Telescope completed the last of its 50 major deployments! #UnfoldTheUniverse (vid link)" / Twitter

Seems like all that development effort was worth it -- it went way over time and way over budget. To the point that I had very little interest in it until it was launched.
 
Is there anywhere I can see a visual depiction of how much further than Hubble Webb can see?
Edit: Nevermind. I found some stuff, but not sure of the accuracy. Can't wait to see what Webb finds.

esahubble.org

How far does Hubble see?

How far does Hubble see?
esahubble.org esahubble.org
 
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