New step for the mission of the super space telescope James Webb which today, at 13.47 Italian time, separated from the Ariane 5, its launch vehicle. The European Space Agency also announced that it was successful with the deployment of the solar array that began 69 seconds after Webb’s separation from its launcher. The launch of Webb on an Ariane 5 rocket supplied by ESA was carried out by Arianespace on behalf of the European Space Agency and took place last December 25 from the European spaceport of Kourou, in French Guiana, at 13:20:07 Italian time.
Esa explains that “Thanks to the extremely precise launch trajectory of Ariane 5, Webb’s solar array was able to deploy immediately after separating from Ariane 5, capturing sunlight to power the observatory “. The European Space Agency has released the video of this crucial step in Webb’s mission taken by a camera produced by the Irish company Réaltra Space Systems Engineering.
Webb is the largest space science observatory after Hubble, the telescope launched in 1990, and was designed to answer unresolved questions about the Universe. Scientists expect from Webb groundbreaking discoveries in all fields of astronomy. Webb will see further into our origins: from the formation of stars and planets, to the birth of the first galaxies in the early Universe. The mission of the super space telescope was born from an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
#Space #step #Webb #separated #Ariane