James Webb

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

I hope it works and achieves a great many things.

My thoughts are; That once it does finally stop working think of the monument (However 'Small') to human engineering we've placed amongst the heavens for any future sophonts to discover.

Since it's my understanding that once 'In'/'At' the Lagrange point it's not going anywhere for a looooooong time.

Cheers.

[Jackalope]

At work.

 I hope it works and achieves a great many things.

My thoughts are; That once it does finally stop working think of the monument (However 'Small') to human engineering we've placed amongst the heavens for any future sophonts to discover.

 Since it's my understanding that once 'In'/'At' the Lagrange point it's not going anywhere for a looooooong time.

 Cheers.

If it were going to be placed at L4 or L5, perhaps, bit it's going to be at L2 which will require periodic course corrections every ~23 days. I would expect it to eventually be unable to do so.

[Fireball]

At work.

 I hope it works and achieves a great many things.

My thoughts are; That once it does finally stop working think of the monument (However 'Small') to human engineering we've placed amongst the heavens for any future sophonts to discover.

 Since it's my understanding that once 'In'/'At' the Lagrange point it's not going anywhere for a looooooong time.

 Cheers.

If it were going to be placed at L4 or L5, perhaps, bit it's going to be at L2 which will require periodic course corrections every ~23 days.  I would expect it to eventually be unable to do so.

"Because the helium will gradually be used up, JWST has a finite and short mission lifetime (5.5 to 10 years).” ... it is limited by the supply of hydrazine fuel needed to maintain the spacecraft's orbit."- AmericanScientist.com

[Jackalope]

If it were going to be placed at L4 or L5, perhaps, bit it's going to be at L2 which will require periodic course corrections every ~23 days.  I would expect it to eventually be unable to do so.

"Because the helium will gradually be used up, JWST has a finite and short mission lifetime (5.5 to 10 years).” ... it is limited by the supply of hydrazine fuel needed to maintain the spacecraft's orbit."- AmericanScientist.com

Yes, but we weren't talking about mission life. We're talking about how long it will remain at L2 after it's long since ceased being useful.

[Fireball]

"Because the helium will gradually be used up, JWST has a finite and short mission lifetime (5.5 to 10 years).” ... it is limited by the supply of hydrazine fuel needed to maintain the spacecraft's orbit."- AmericanScientist.com

Yes, but we weren't talking about mission life.  We're talking about how long it will remain at L2 after it's long since ceased being useful.

Ah, OK.

[vulcanlogician]

It might actually last longer being stationed at L2. Yeah, it'll drift away and fall into the orbit of some massive body. But if it were at L4, L5... seems to me it'd eventually collide with all the natural rocks that are also stuck in L4/L5.

I'm not sure if this is true or not. Just conjecture on my part. I know that asteroids naturally get stuck in L4/L5. Seems to me, over geologic time scales, James Webb might be safer just kind of floating around freely rather than in the "rock pit."

[Fireball]

I'm pretty sure that people way above our paygrade have considered where to put it, and decided that L2 was the optimal place.

[AFTT47]

I avoided getting excited about the Webb because I was pessimistic about its chances of successfully deploying. The sunshield alone had to be an engineer's nightmare! But by some combination of genius and luck, we have a fully-deployed telescope. It still needs to go through five months of alignment and calibration but I'm daring to hope now. What a spectacular instrument of science this thing is going to be if all goes well!

[vulcanlogician]

Everything is looking good. Fingers crossed. I can't wait for the first observations.

[ignoramus]

Is it powerful?
Can it peer through bedroom windows in New Zealand?
Asking for a friend.

(Boru, I'll let you know when I get an answer)