James Webb Space Telescope Status Live Thread

[Kamaji]

I hope the design margin was enough to accommodate this strike.

[Elderberry]

NASA scientists say images from the Webb telescope nearly brought them to tears

ars Technica by Eric Berger - 6/29/2022

Deep field images of the universe, exoplanet atmospheres, and more to be unveiled.

NASA's deputy administrator, Pam Melroy, said she was blown away by the images Webb has produced so far. "What I have seen moved me, as a scientist, as an engineer, and as a human being," she said.

The telescope is healthy. Thanks to a precise launch by the European Space Agency's Ariane 5 rocket, Webb should have enough maneuvering propellant on board for 20 years of life. And although there have already been five micrometeoroid impacts, the telescope was designed to account for these small dings with a lot of margin.

Recounting his first encounter with data from Webb, Zurbuchen said he, too, was in awe of what the telescope had proven capable of. He said he almost cried when looking at the first photos taken by the new instrument.

Unfortunately, we will have to wait nearly two full weeks to see the final products from Webb's first observations. NASA said it will not be releasing any images early, even on an embargoed basis. But we've waited 20 years for Webb to come online and offer a truly worthy successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. I suppose we can wait a little while longer.

If we must.

More: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06/nasa-teases-extraordinary-images-captured-by-its-webb-telescope/

[Elderberry]

James Webb Space Telescope preview image released

SpaceQ by  Marc Boucher 7/7/2022

The partners of the James Webb Space Telescope have released a preview image as a teaser to next weeks official first photo.

The engineering test image was captured by the Canadian built Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS).

NASA’s Patrick Lynch of the Goddard Space Flight Center provided the following detail on the image:

We are less than one week away from the release of the first full-color images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, but how does the observatory find and lock onto its targets? Webb’s Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) – developed by the Canadian Space Agency – was designed with this particular question in mind. Recently it captured a view of stars and galaxies that provides a tantalizing glimpse at what the telescope’s science instruments will reveal in the coming weeks, months, and years.

FGS has always been capable of capturing imagery, but its primary purpose is to enable accurate science measurements and imaging with precision pointing. When it does capture imagery, the imagery is typically not kept: Given the limited communications bandwidth between L2 and Earth, Webb only sends data from up to two science instruments at a time. But during a week-long stability test in May, it occurred to the team that they could keep the imagery that was being captured because there was available data transfer bandwidth.

The resulting engineering test image has some rough-around-the-edges qualities to it. It was not optimized to be a science observation; rather, the data was taken to test how well the telescope could stay locked onto a target, but it does hint at the power of the telescope. It carries a few hallmarks of the views Webb has produced during its postlaunch preparations. Bright stars stand out with their six, long, sharply defined diffraction spikes – an effect due to Webb’s six-sided mirror segments. Beyond the stars, galaxies fill nearly the entire background.

More: https://spaceq.ca/james-webb-space-telescope-preview-image-released/


This engineering test image captured by Canada’s Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) on Webb, in 72 exposures over 32 hours in
May 2022, provides a unique preview of the power of the space observatory. Credit: Canadian Space Agency, NASA, FGS team.

[Gefn]

I can’t wait to see the pictures.

 

[Polly Ticks]

I can’t wait to see the pictures.

 

Same here!

[Gefn]

First photo has Arrived.

I’ll put it n a separate thread here

[Elderberry]