James Webb Space Telescope to launch in December

NASA has announced that the long-delayed James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will finally launch on December 18, 2021.

The reason for the delay was that one of the clamp bands fixing the JWST to the Ariane 5 rocket suddenly opened out of schedule, causing a great vibration throughout the aircraft. In JWST, large and small distortions can cause problems in accurate observation, and NASA is currently checking in various places to see if any additional abnormalities have occurred.

The JWST development project started in 1996. At the time, it was scheduled to launch in 2007. However, development did not proceed smoothly, and in 2005, a full review of the project was initiated. In this review, the objective of the telescope was maintained and the airframe configuration was completed, and in April 2007, a redesign review was completed in 10 technical items. After that, the review of each part of the aircraft was completed and the MCDR was completed in April 2010, completing all design reviews.

The JWST project entered the final design and manufacturing phase in 2011, and assembly was completed in November 2016. From here, we entered the testing phase to make sure each part worked. However, in March 2018, a problem occurred that the sunshield was damaged during deployment due to poor cable connection. By August 2019, the connection integration was eventually completed, but the delay was repeated due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic at the time of launch.

JWST, scheduled to launch in October, has been delayed several times. Now the launch schedule has been rescheduled. Related information can be found here.