The James Webb Space Telescope Will Be Orbiting the Sun At L2 or 1.5 million kilometers away.

[DhhD]

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/orbit.html

A Solar Orbit
The James Webb Space Telescope will not be in orbit around the Earth, like the Hubble Space Telescope is - it will actually orbit the Sun, 1.5 million kilometers (1 million miles) away from the Earth at what is called the second Lagrange point or L2. What is special about this orbit is that it lets the telescope to stay in line with the Earth as it moves around the Sun. This allows the satellite's large sunshield to protect the telescope from the light and heat of the Sun and Earth (and Moon).
more at link

Proposed launch is October 2018 via Ariane 5 ECA.

[longship]

1. Here...

An artist's rendition.


This is a seriously large telescope, plus it sees in the infrared. It has to be at L2 because it needs to have a stable orbit to keep its sun shield pointed towards the sun. What it returns to Terra will be remarkable and will blow away the considerable science that the Hubble has returned.

BTW, it is huge. 6.5 meter diameter mirrors. The Hubble Space Telescope is 2.4 meters.

JWST

It is a considerable step forward.

[DhhD]

4. The Wow Factor.

[longship]

5. And it all unfolds like an origami.

On the rocket at launch it is all folded up.

It is amazing what they have this thing doing.

Here is an info graphic:


Here: the backplane for the mirrors arrive at the test center: all folded up.


One of the mirrors:


And, the heat shield:


Wow! Indeed.


Unfortunately it is not serviceable. So its life will be limited, less than the Hubble, which was in relatively low Earth orbit and serviced a few times by the shuttle.

[DhhD]

7. A factory space station will orbit the Sun? Maybe like the new objects we have detected around

a close star. (It is a close star to me.)

[bananas]

2. It will actually be in a halo orbit around L2

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1237986

[BlueJazz]

3. If I could live there, I would. Be paradise.

[DhhD]

6. Here is the video about what the JWST observatory will be able to do.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

8. Orbiting around the second Lagrange point (L2)

During the feasibility studies (1995-96), NASA and the STScI considered a wide variety of orbits for JWST. The most promising was an orbit about the Sun-Earth second Lagrange point (L2), approximately 1.5 million km from Earth, outside the orbit of the Moon. The region about L2 is a gravitational saddle point, where spacecraft may remain at roughly constant distance from the Earth throughout the year by small station-keeping maneuvers.



Orbiting at L2 isn't like holding a geostationary position above the earth. Rather, the spacecraft will orbit around L2:



Isn't orbital mechanics neat?

http://www.stsci.edu/jwst/overview/design/orbit

[DhhD]

9. Adding the Hubble Telescope - Documentary Video - 2015

Invisible Universe Revealed by Hubble Telescope - Space Documentary (2015)

[DhhD]

10. Superimposition abilities of space observatory telescopes.

http://jwst.nasa.gov/comparison_about.html