Kourou, France:
The world’s most powerful space telescope shot into orbit on Saturday, en route to an outpost 1.5 million kilometers (930,000 miles) from Earth, after several delays caused by technical problems.
About three decades and billions of dollars in the making, the James Webb Space Telescope left Earth enclosed in its Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou Space Center in French Guiana.
It is expected to take a month to reach the remote destination.
It is expected to return new clues that will help scientists understand more about the origin of the Universe and Earth-like planets beyond our solar system.
Named after a former NASA director, Webb is following in the footsteps of the legendary Hubble — but plans to show people what the universe looked like, even closer to its birth, nearly 14 billion years ago.
On social media, John Mather, co-founder of the Webb project, described the telescope’s unprecedented sensitivity.
“#JWST can see a bumblebee’s heat signature at the distance of the moon,” he said.
All that power is needed to detect the faint glow emitted billions of years ago by the very first galaxies and the first stars to form.
‘Extraordinary measures’
The telescope is unparalleled in size and complexity.
The mirror measures 6.5 meters (21 feet) in diameter – three times the size of the Hubble mirror – and is made of 18 hexagonal sections.
It is so large that it had to be folded to fit in the rocket.
That maneuver was laser-guided with NASA imposing strict isolation measures to limit any contact with the telescope’s mirrors by particles or even human breath.
Once the missiles have carried Webb for 75 miles, the craft’s protective nose, called a “fairing,” is dropped to lighten the load.
To protect the delicate instrument from pressure changes at that stage, rocket builder Arianespace installed a modified decompression system.
“Exceptional measures for an exceptional customer,” a European Space Agency official said in Kourou on Thursday.
The crew on the ground will know about 27 minutes after launch whether the first phase of the flight was successful.
Once it reaches its station, the challenge will be to fully deploy the mirror and a tennis court-sized sunshade.
That intimidatingly complex process takes two weeks and must be flawless for Webb to function properly.
Its orbit will be much further than Hubble, which has been 600 kilometers above Earth since 1990.
The location of Webb’s orbit is called the Lagrange 2 point and was chosen in part because it will keep the Earth, Sun and Moon all on the same side of the sunshade.
Webb is expected to officially enter service in June.
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