NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, designed to give the world an unprecedented glimpse into the earliest stages of the universe, neared its gravitational parking space on Monday in orbit around the sun, almost 1 million miles from Earth.
With a final course-correcting maneuver by on-board rocket thrusters set for 2 p.m. EDT , Webb is expected to reach its destination at a position of orbital stability between the Earth and sun known as Lagrange Point Two, or L2, arriving one month after launch.
The combined pull of the sun and Earth at L2 can hold the telescope firmly in place so it takes little additional rocket thrust to keep Webb from drifting. Its size and design to operate mainly in the infrared spectrum will allow Webb to peer through clouds of gas and dust and observe objects at greater distances, thus farther back in time, than Hubble or any other telescope.
The 18 segments now need to be aligned to achieve the mirror's proper focus, a process that will take three months to complete.As the alignment progresses, ground teams will start activating the observatory's spectrograph, camera and other instruments. This will be followed by two months calibrating the instruments themselves, Smith said.
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