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| James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be the largest space telescope. Photo: sciencemag.org |
The new launch date was announced by NASA after the latest delayed of the James Webb Space Telescope that caused by the covid-19 pandemic. The last suspended was in March 2020 for the integration and testing. NASA, however, announced the new launch date will be on October 31, 2021 from French Guiana.
James Webb Space Telescope development started as early as 1996 with the original launch date planned for 2007. There were many delays before, in the development of this telescope for good that increased its original budget from USD500 millions, to USD 8.8 billions.
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| Preparing JWST for test is not an easy task. Photo: wired.com |
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) works differently from the Hubble Space Telescope, in term of how it conducts its observation in the near ultraviolet, visible and near infrared. These capabilities will allow JWST to see more objects than its predecessor (Hubble Space Telescope) capable of. This is also one of the reasons, why there are many delays in the preparation of JWST during the development of this project.
The design of the Telescope also so unique to allow it to be fitted in the small Ariane 5 rocket for launch. As the result, the 6.5 meter diameter gold-coated reflector need to be folded in 18 separated panels. Other than that, it also equipped with a special sunshield made of silicon-coated and aluminium-coated Kapton to keep its instruments below 50 K (−220 °C; −370 °F).
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| The comparison in size between Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope. Photo: scitechdaily.com |
More details about this amazing telescope can be found here from few sources such as Wikipedia and NASA itself. We all can't wait to see this future telescope in action.
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