On top of showing that work has slowed, the review found unspecified “technical challenges” that will take extra time to overcome.
Tests completed, completing its PLF for French Guiana right now.
https://newatlas.com/space/james-webb-space-telescope-finish-final-testing/
Recent update on final testing....
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/nasa-s-james-webb-space-telescope-has-completed-testing
JWST mission home page on NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/webb/main/index.html
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NASAWebb
This has taken so long and cost so much I think a lot of people will have their fingers crossed from launch until first light.
I will believe that the JWST is finally ready when it is actually launched and deploys successfully - whenever that may be.
So many careers in astronomy are literally riding on this mission. Surely there must be some accountability among the mission planners for the extensive delays?
We have been very, very fortunate that NASA has managed to keep Hubble going for as long as it has - now 31 years in orbit.
December 18th targeted as the launch date.
The launch vehicle will probably explode on the pad or veer off course and be remote detonated. Seriously, I very much hope this mission succeeds, but at this point it's the James Never telescope.
You could argue Hubble had an even more troublesome development than Webb (although Webb could still catch up!)
It's taken a long time to get here, but hopefully all of the delays result in another few decades of amazing astronomy discoveries, and some nice desktop backgrounds for all of us.
The Hubble fiasco was a typical instance of NASA incompetence and arrogance. The millitary offered to check the collimation of the main mirror for them, but NASA refused because they wouldn't be allowed to take part due to obvious secrecy as the capability was part of the Air Force KH-11 spy satellite program, with the Hubble basically being just a a civillian version of it with a few extras bolted on. The checking of the main mirror collimation by NASA's contractor was stuffed up because of some shim washers were left in the device, or were the wrong thickness, or some such.
Despite complaints, NASA won't rename James Webb Space Telescope
Critics of Webb claim that he was complicit in discrimination against gay and lesbian NASA employees during his tenure, pointing to incidents such as the 1963 "immoral conduct" firing of Clifford Norton.
maybe we should put a hold on it till we can sort this thing out... :/
in other, not so new, news...
Amateur historians and astronomers are buzzing with intrigue over allegations that the legendary US astronomer Edwin Hubble, after whom NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is named, may have actively censored the work of a competitor to advance his own career.
Professional historians are demanding further evidence, but advocates of the position are already urging NASA to name a future space mission after the slighted researcher.
Hubble is credited with a discovery that paved the way for modern astronomy. In 1929, he published a paper1 in which he reported on a correlation between the distance of galaxies from Earth and their velocities. Later dubbed Hubble's law, the correlation shows that the further away a galaxy is, the more its light shifts towards the red end of the spectrum. This redshift implies that galaxies are moving away from the Earth, and later astronomers interpreted it as evidence that the Universe seems to be expanding.
But Hubble was not the first to notice this correlation. In 1927, the Belgian astronomer Georges Lemaître published a paper in French, which gave a theoretical description of the same relationship2. Lemaître also used data from others to derive the constant governing the expansion, known today has Hubble's constant. "If you wanted to pick one person who probably deserves most credit for [discovering] the expanding Universe, it would be Lemaître," says Robert Smith, a historian of science at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.
The JWST has arrived in Guiana.
The large, space-based telescope's "no earlier than" launch date will slip from December 18 to at least December 22 after an "incident" occurred during processing operations at the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana. That is where the telescope will launch on an Ariane 5 rocket provided by the European Space Agency.
"Technicians were preparing to attach Webb to the launch vehicle adapter, which is used to integrate the observatory with the upper stage of the Ariane 5 rocket," NASA said in a blog post. "A sudden, unplanned release of a clamp band—which secures Webb to the launch vehicle adapter—caused a vibration throughout the observatory."
"...at least December 2022",
That scope is jinxed, doomed. I'll be dead before it sees light, if it ever does.
So fancy words for 'they dropped it'?
Would Not like to be the guy who was supposed to have attached that clamp to the gazillion euro nanometre precision glass mirror
Just as well, cause I heard from a guy down the pub, that the telescope is actually designed to focus light from the sun onto points on earth in a 21st century version of a space Archimedes ray
Oh ffs!!!
Not woke sh*te here too!!!
Don't they know that all of our most revered scientists were absolute dickheads in their personal life (margin for error 5%)
It says from Dec 18 to Dec 22, not Dec 2022. It was due to launch on December 18th and now it won't launch until at least December 22nd. 2021.
Whoopsie :)
In Quantum Erasure's post above I took December 22 to be December 2022, but it's not thankfully. It's the 22nd of December 2021.
I might live to see it yet
Just launch it already...😡
What a fu king sh tshow. But I'll remain optimistic, if it can discover even half of what hubble did it will be worth while.
Repairs to that weather satellite cost $135m
Indeed as well as being people of their time, how will people of today be judged in 100 years with relative morals on 2121 ?
By then, If you had any opinion about anything you'll be screwed. We havent reached peak offense on behalf of others yet, but we are nearly there.
Will the NSA/CIA not just give one they have up their already to NASA?
What's the point in it discovering some of the stuff Hubble's already discovered?
They dhould point it somewhere different
It's a completely different type of telescope measuring different wavelengths to Hubble. It will be pointing at all the same places, but trying to discover new things.
If it does discover even half the amount of new discoveries that the Hubble has, then it will be a huge success
