Webb launch set for Christmas Day

[NotAllThere]

Update: Santa has been destroyed by the range safety officer.

xkcd.com

[OwlHoot]

Hope they didn't leave the lens cap on!

Hope they didn't measure the diameter of one mirror in metres and another in fathoms, like last time with the Hubble!

[darmstadt]

First image already in:

[mattster]

This seems to all be going pretty well so far (touch wood). More than 75% of "single point failure" operations completed successfully so far, with just the deployment of the primary mirrors to come over the next two days, then the L2 insertion burn and 5 months of calibration! Worth noting that they have a "functional" telescope now, even if the primary mirror wings were to fail to deploy.

More here: https://webb.nasa.gov/content/webbLa...tExplorer.html

[darmstadt]

I was at the Hubble launch and was sent to ESTEC for the when the first images came through. Pretty spectacular at the time, very impressive. I've been told that this time you can get them at home as long as you've had your booster vaccine....

[AtW]

""Nasa engineers yesterday completed the final unfolding of the huge primary mirror of the agency’s James Webb space telescope. The manoeuvre was the final step of the $10bn observatory’s two-week deployment phase that began with its launch on Christmas Day.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...pace-telescope

[xoggoth]

Excellent news. They will probably spot god having a .....

[ladymuck]

Well it's made it to L2 and the bits and bobs have been unfolded.

Now time to focus those mirrors and get testing!

[d000hg]

Really pretty amazing to avoid any hitches so far. One assumes that from this point (or soon) it already starts having some usability even if everything doesn't go perfectly?