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Webb flies Ariane 5: watch the launch live on 25 December

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Re: Webb flies Ariane 5: watch the launch live on 25 December

#51

Post by rrss »

mrtksn wrote: post #41
rrss wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It wasn’t originally planned for tomorrow Right, it was originally planned for 2007. It is sorta funny that after 14 years of delays they picked the week of Christmas.

They didn’t pick that either, it was supposed to launch earlier but a clamp broke down when attaching the telescope to the rocket sending vibrations all over it and and as a result they had to inspect for damages, further delaying the launch. Then the weather wasn’t good and delayed once more.

They did though. It was delayed, they chose to delay it from October to December 18 to December 22 to Christmas instead of like the first week of January or whatever.

It’s not like this thing is launching to Mars and they’d have to wait a couple years if they miss this week - it could launch on 210 days of each year.

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/about/faqs/faq.html#launchWind...

I don’t mind at all, I just think it’s a bit funny.

Re: Webb flies Ariane 5: watch the launch live on 25 December

#52

Post by rrss »

jacquesm wrote: post #50
rrss wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about planning around the single most celebrated holiday in the US, religious or not: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_the_Unite...

Ariane 5 is a European effort, not a US effort, it will launch from French Guyana, not from the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5

Cool.

Webb will be monitored and operated by NASA in Maryland.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#T...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Telescope_Science_Inst...

Re: Webb flies Ariane 5: watch the launch live on 25 December

#53

Post by jacquesm »

rrss wrote: post #52
jacquesm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ariane 5 is a European effort, not a US effort, it will launch from French Guyana, not from the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5

Cool. Webb will be monitored and operated by NASA in Maryland. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#T... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Telescope_Science_Inst...

I really don't get your fixation about this: the people involved are all most likely extremely happy to see their creation fly and to have Christmas take a backseat to that.

Let's just hope it all goes well, this is one of the most complex space endeavors we've ever tried, and if it fails it will have many negative long term implications.

Re: Webb flies Ariane 5: watch the launch live on 25 December

#54

Post by rrss »

jacquesm wrote: post #53
rrss wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. Webb will be monitored and operated by NASA in Maryland. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#T... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Telescope_Science_Inst...

I really don't get your fixation about this: the people involved are all most likely extremely happy to see their creation fly and to have Christmas take a backseat to that. Let's just hope it all goes well, this is one of the most complex space endeavors we've ever tried, and if it fails it will have many negative long term implications.

I did not get your real or feigned ignorance that Christmas is a much more significant holiday to the vast majority of the people involved than the Feast of the Ass.

I also hope all goes well. Cheers.

Re: Webb flies Ariane 5: watch the launch live on 25 December

#55

Post by jacquesm »

dimtion wrote: post #42

I do have a question about JWST that I wasn't able to find a fine answer in other forums. A lot of people and engineers are saying that the JWST is a marvel of engineering, with truly inovative technical solutions and a giant step up compared to Hubble Telescope. And it does seems like so! However, I'm always baffled how everyone seems proud that the telescope has something like 200 SPOF during deployment, and if eve…

Unlike say, the Apollo program, which had a guaranteed successful outcome?

The thing to realize is that these are some of the hardest things humanity has tried their hand on and if it all works that's a great thing for all of us, if it fails we will learn something and we'll go back to the drawing board (but we won't have a JWST and that's a significant loss, besides the obvious future calls of 'look at what happened to JWST' which will no doubt have negative impact on finding funding for future space missions).

Also, I think you're mistaken about people being 'proud about the 200 SPOFs', if they could have made it one less they certainly would have because everybody involved wants this to succeed. Think of these as the ones that they simply could not get rid of no matter how hard they tried.

Re: Webb flies Ariane 5: watch the launch live on 25 December

#56

Post by kibwen »

furyofantares wrote: post #15
foobarian wrote: post #3

Decades of meticulous planning and they couldn't give their teams a day off on Christmas? Of course it could be that consensus was this beats any other kind of activity that day in which case fair enough. :-)

Newton's birthday sounds like the perfect day for a rocket launch to me

Since Isaac Newton was actually born extremely prematurely, at less than 30 weeks of pregnancy, maybe he was the one rushing to match the date of the JWST launch. :P

Re: Webb flies Ariane 5: watch the launch live on 25 December

#57

Post by jacquesm »

rrss wrote: post #54
jacquesm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get your fixation about this: the people involved are all most likely extremely happy to see their creation fly and to have Christmas take a backseat to that. Let's just hope it all goes well, this is one of the most complex space endeavors we've ever tried, and if it fails it will have many negative long term implications.

I did not get your real or feigned ignorance that Christmas is a much more significant holiday to the vast majority of the people involved than the Feast of the Ass. I also hope all goes well. Cheers.

I couldn't care less about Christmas, but I do care about the JWST, and I can't wait for first light.

Re: Webb flies Ariane 5: watch the launch live on 25 December

#58

Post by sgt101 »

dimtion wrote: post #42

I do have a question about JWST that I wasn't able to find a fine answer in other forums. A lot of people and engineers are saying that the JWST is a marvel of engineering, with truly inovative technical solutions and a giant step up compared to Hubble Telescope. And it does seems like so! However, I'm always baffled how everyone seems proud that the telescope has something like 200 SPOF during deployment, and if eve…

It has to fit in the fareing, survive launch stress and vibration, fly further than the moon and it has to weigh 6000 kgs +including fuel. If it works it will be one of the greatest engineering feats of history.

Re: Webb flies Ariane 5: watch the launch live on 25 December

#59

Post by nkrisc »

dimtion wrote: post #42

I do have a question about JWST that I wasn't able to find a fine answer in other forums. A lot of people and engineers are saying that the JWST is a marvel of engineering, with truly inovative technical solutions and a giant step up compared to Hubble Telescope. And it does seems like so! However, I'm always baffled how everyone seems proud that the telescope has something like 200 SPOF during deployment, and if eve…

> However, I'm always baffled how everyone seems proud that the telescope has something like 200 SPOF during deployment, and if even one of them fails the whole mission could fail.

Genuinely curious: how would you have achieved the mission goals with fewer SPOF?

Re: Webb flies Ariane 5: watch the launch live on 25 December

#60

Post by throw0101a »

dimtion wrote: post #42

I do have a question about JWST that I wasn't able to find a fine answer in other forums. A lot of people and engineers are saying that the JWST is a marvel of engineering, with truly inovative technical solutions and a giant step up compared to Hubble Telescope. And it does seems like so! However, I'm always baffled how everyone seems proud that the telescope has something like 200 SPOF during deployment, and if eve…

> Is JWST as brittle as the news want to make us think? Or are there technical reasons or acceptable failure modes that gives confidence that those steps are not as critical as the news let us people know?

There is no room for redundancy in many aspects of the design, unlike, say a Boeing 777 or Airbus A350.

How can you have a redundant heat shield, or primary mirror (two parts of which swing)? I'm sure some computer systems have redundancy and perhaps comms.

But like with a helicopter: how can you have redundancy in the tail rotor?

So with the JWST: there's no way around many SPOFs.

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