NASA’s Successor To Hubble Space Telescope Is Ready At Last, After Over A Decade
Image via NASA / Chris Gunn
NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the famed Hubble Space Telescope, is finally ready to be launched. The space agency recently announced the completion of testing for the long-awaited telescope.
“Webb’s many tests and checkpoints were designed to ensure that the world’s most complex space science observatory will operate as designed once in space,” NASA said in a statement.
NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency worked together to create the James Webb Space Telescope. It’ll now be used to explore the unknowns of our solar system and universe, and help discover more about the formation of stars, planets, and galaxies.
According to CNET, it was originally planned that the telescope be launched in 2007, which shows how long the 14-year wait has been for the team.
Preparations are expected to be completed in September, before the telescope travels from its current home at Northrop Grumman’s facilities in California to French Guiana in South America.
Interestingly, the telescope has been designed in such a way that it packs up like origami or a flat-pack, and will unfold itself in space as it travels to its orbital site. Almost a million miles from Earth, the device will begin operations six months after it’s launched.
Excited? The James Webb Space Telescope could launch on the Ariane 5 rocket as soon as October 31.
[via CNET, cover image via NASA / Chris Gunn]
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