Great triumph for NASA as James Webb Space Telescope nears orbit around Sun
In what is turning out to be a big success for NASA, the James Webb Space Telescope, designed to give the world an unprecedented glimpse into the earliest stages of the universe, neared its gravitational parking space on Monday in orbit around the Sun, almost 1 million miles from Earth. With a final course-correcting maneuver by on-board rocket thrusters set for 2 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT), Webb is expected to reach its destination at a position of orbital stability between the Earth and sun known as Lagrange Point Two, or L2, arriving one month after launch.
The thrusters will be activated by mission control engineers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and the ground team will use radio signals to confirm when Webb has been successfully "inserted" into orbit, said Eric Smith, NASA's program scientist for Webb.
From its vantage point in space, Webb will follow a special path in constant alignment with Earth, as the planet and telescope circle the sun in tandem, enabling uninterrupted radio contact.
By comparison, Webb's 30-year-old predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, orbits the Earth from 340 miles (547 km) away, passing in and out of the planet's shadow every 90 minutes.
The combined pull of the sun and Earth at L2 can hold the telescope firmly in place so it takes little additional rocket thrust to keep Webb from drifting.
Utilized by several other deep space satellites over the years, an L2 position allows a "minimum amount of fuel to stay in orbit," Smith said.
The operations center has also begun fine-tuning the telescope's primary mirror - an array of 18 hexagonal segments of gold-coated beryllium metal measuring 21 feet, 4 inches (6.5 meters) across - far larger than Hubble's main mirror.
Its size and
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