Launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope delayed until Christmas eve

By Georgina Torbet Published April 28, 2022

NASA has announced that the launch of its next-generation telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, has been delayed until Christmas eve due to a communication issue between the telescope and its rocket. The construction and launch of the telescope have suffered repeated delays, due in part to the extreme complexity of the telescope and its systems. Once launched, it will be the world’s most powerful space observatory and will be the successor to the aging Hubble Space Telescope.

“The James Webb Space Telescope team is working a communication issue between the observatory and the launch vehicle system,” NASA wrote in a brief statement this week. “This will delay the launch date to no earlier than Friday, December 24.”

NASA technicians lift the James Webb Telescope, using a crane, and move it inside a clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The scientific successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, Webb is the most powerful space telescope ever built. — NASA technicians lift the James Webb Telescope, using a crane, and move it inside a clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The scientific successor to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, Webb is the most powerful space telescope ever built. NASA/Desiree Stover

Thomas Zurbuchen, the Associate Administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, has been providing further updates on the status of the telescope and its launch preparations on Twitter.

Recommended Videos

On Thursday, December 16, he shared an update: “Just in from the Webb launch site: The team has fixed the connection issue and @NASAWebb is in the midst of its final scheduled aliveness test before launch.”

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Further confirmation came yesterday, Friday, December 17, when Stéphane Israël, CEO of launch provider Arianespace, wrote that, “Final encapsulation operations ongoing,” and that the team would “Need a few more hours to complete them.”

Israël also confirmed that the targeted launch date is December 24 at 12:20 a.m. UTC (7:20 p.m. ET or 4:20 p.m. PT on December 23), with final confirmation of this date expected today, Saturday, December 18.

It is not only the launch of the telescope which is complicated. The deployment of the telescope is highly complex as well, as it must perform operations such as unfolding its tennis court-sized sunshield which will protect the delicate electronics on board from the heat of the sun. The sunshield is designed in an origami-type stye in order to fold up and fit within the rocket.

“In the 29 days after liftoff, thousands of parts must work correctly, in sequence, to ensure that Webb can unfold into its final form,” NASA writes. “And as all of this takes place, Webb will fly through the expanse of space to a destination nearly one million miles away.”

Topics

Georgina Torbet

Space Writer

Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…

Space

Webb and Hubble snap the same object for two views of one galaxy

Featured in this NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month is the spiral galaxy NGC 2090, located in the constellation Columba. This combination of data from Webb’s MIRI and NIRCam instruments shows the galaxy’s two winding spiral arms and the swirling gas and dust of its disc in magnificent and unique detail.

With all the excitement over the last few years for the shiny and new James Webb Space Telescope, it's easy to forget about the grand old master of the space telescopes, Hubble. But although Webb is a successor to Hubble in some ways, with newer technology and the ability to see the universe in even greater detail, it isn't a replacement. A pair of new images shows why: with the same galaxy captured by both Webb and Hubble, you can see the different details picked out by each telescope and why having both of them together is such a great boon for scientists.

The galaxy NGC 2090 was imaged by Webb, shown above, using its MIRI and NIRCam instruments. These instruments operate in the mid-infrared and near-infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum respectively, which is why the arms of this galaxy appear to be glowing red. These arms are made of swirling gas and dust, and within them are compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that glow brightly in the infrared. The blue color in the center of the galaxy shows a region of young stars burning hot and bright.

Space

SpaceX to launch NASA’s Dragonfly drone mission to Titan

Caption: Artist’s concept of Dragonfly soaring over the dunes of Saturn’s moon Titan.

Over the last few years, the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars made history by proving it was possible to fly a rotorcraft on another planet. And soon NASA will take that concept one step further by launching a drone mission to explore an even more distant world: Saturn's icy moon of Titan.

The Dragonfly mission is set to explore Titan from the air, its eight rotors keeping it aloft as it moves through the thick atmosphere and passes over the rough, challenging terrain below. The aim is to look for potential habitability, studying the moon to work out if water-based or hydrocarbon-based life could ever have existed there.

Space

Stunning view of the Sombrero Galaxy captured by James Webb

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope recently imaged the Sombrero galaxy with its MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), resolving the clumpy nature of the dust along the galaxy’s outer ring. The mid-infrared light highlights the gas and dust that are part of star formation taking place among the Sombrero galaxy’s outer disk. The rings of the Sombrero galaxy produce less than one solar mass of stars per year, in comparison to the Milky Way’s roughly two solar masses a year. It’s not a particular hotbed of star formation. The Sombrero galaxy is around 30 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

A new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a stunning and fashionable sight: the Sombrero Galaxy, named for its resemblance to the traditional Mexican hat. With its wide, flat shape reminiscent of the hat's wide brim, the galaxy, also known as Messier 104, has outer rings that are clearly visible for the first time.

The Sombrero Galaxy is located 30 million light-years away, in the constellation of Virgo, and it has been previously imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. But while in the Hubble image, the galaxy appears as an opaque, pale disk, in the new Webb image you can see an outer blue disk, with a small bright core right at the center.