James Webb: Hubble successor maintains course

[nitpicker]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35403361

James Webb: Hubble successor maintains course

Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent

5 hours ago
From the section Science & Environment

The successor to the Hubble Space Telescope is reaching some key milestones in its preparation for launch in 2018. Engineers are about to complete the assembly of the primary mirror surface on the James Webb Space Telescope. They are also winding up the final deep-chill calibration tests on the observatory's four instruments. The US space agency-led project is now on track to make rapid progress in the coming months. The major components of JWST, which have been years in the design and fabrication phase, will at last be integrated into their flight configuration.

With margin still in the programme to cope with any unexpected problems, everything currently remains on course for an October 2018 lift-off atop a European Ariane rocket.
(snip)

Webb is a joint venture between Nasa and its European and Canadian counterparts. It will go in search of the very first stars to shine in the Universe.

To achieve this ambition, it will deploy a 6.5m-wide mirror, giving the observatory roughly seven times the light-collecting area of Hubble. And allied to instruments that are sensitive in the infrared, Webb will be tuned to detect the faint, "stretched" glow of objects that originally shone more than 13.5 billion years ago.

Recent weeks have seen engineers gluing the beryllium segments of the main mirror into their supporting backplane structure. In the next few days, the last two of 18 hexagons will be lowered into position for secure attachment.

Meanwhile, down the corridor from the Webb cleanroom at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the instruments are about to emerge from their latest "cryo-vac" campaign. Since October, the quartet - NIRCam from the US, NIRSpec and MIRI from Europe, and the Canadian FGS/NIRISS - have been sealed in an airless chamber and taken down to the temperatures at which they must operate in space. This is in the realm of 40 kelvins, or -233C.

US, European and Canadian teams have been working around the clock, putting the instruments through their paces, presenting them with "artificial stars" that simulate the kinds of objects they will eventually get to probe on the sky.
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[StandingInLeftField]

2. Remember...

measure twice, cut once!

Seriously though, very excited about the new capabilities of this 'scope.

[Stryst]

3. This is the science project I'm most excieted about

The LHC upgrade is pretty cool, but that just makes math. This is science with pictures!