From $1 billon to $10 billion. What does not get publicized (from Wikipedia and others)
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope designed to conduct infrared astronomy. As the largest telescope in space, it is equipped with high-resolution and high-sensitivity instruments, allowing it to view objects too old, distant, or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope. This enables investigations across many fields of astronomy and cosmology, such as observation of the first stars and the formation of the first galaxies, and detailed atmospheric characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets.
Although the Webb’s mirror diameter is 2.7 times larger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope, it produces images of comparable sharpness because it observes in the longer-wavelength infrared spectrum. The longer the wavelength of the spectrum, the larger the information-gathering surface required (mirrors in the infrared spectrum or antenna area in the millimeter and radio ranges) for an image comparable in clarity to the visible spectrum of the Hubble Space Telescope.
The Webb was launched on 25 December 2021 on an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana. In January 2022 it arrived at its destination, a solar orbit near the Sun–Earth L2 Lagrange point, about 1.5 million kilometers (930,000 mi) from Earth. The telescope’s first image was released to the public on 11 July 2022.
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) led Webb’s design and development and partnered with two main agencies: the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland managed telescope development, while the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore on the Homewood Campus of Johns Hopkins University operates Webb. The primary contractor for the project was Northrop Grumman.
The telescope is named after James E. Webb, who was the administrator of NASA from 1961 to 1968 during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs.
Webb’s primary mirror consists of 18 hexagonal mirror segments made of gold-plated beryllium, which together create a 6.5-meter-diameter (21 ft) mirror, compared with Hubble’s 2.4 m (7 ft 10 in). This gives Webb a light-collecting area of about 25 m2 (270 sq ft), about six times that of Hubble. Unlike Hubble, which observes in the near ultraviolet and visible (0.1 to 0.8 μm), and near infrared (0.8–2.5 μm) spectra, Webb observes a lower frequency range, from long-wavelength visible light (red) through mid-infrared (0.6–28.5 μm). The telescope must be kept extremely cold, below 50 K (−223 °C; −370 °F), so that the infrared light emitted by the telescope itself does not interfere with the collected light. Its five-layer sunshield protects it from warming by the Sun, Earth, and Moon.
Initial designs for the telescope, then named the Next Generation Space Telescope, began in 1996. Two concept studies were commissioned in 1999, for a potential launch in 2007 and a US$1 billion budget. The program was plagued with enormous cost overruns and delays. A major redesign was accomplished in 2005, with construction completed in 2016, followed by years of exhaustive testing, at a total cost of US$10 billion.
A Solar Orbit
The James Webb Space Telescope is not in orbit around the Earth, like the Hubble Space Telescope is – it actually orbits the Sun, 1.5 million kilometers (1 million miles) away from the Earth at what is called the second Lagrange point or L2. What is special about this orbit is that it lets the telescope stay in line with the Earth as it moves around the Sun. This allows the satellite’s large sunshield to protect the telescope from the light and heat of the Sun and Earth (and Moon).
Webb orbits the sun 1.5 million kilometers (1 million miles) away from the Earth at what is called the second Lagrange point or L2. (Note that this graphic is not to scale.)
James Webb Space Telescope orbit as seen from above the Sun’s north pole and as seen from Earth’s perspective.
Getting There
It took roughly 30 days for Webb to reach the start of its orbit at L2, but it took only 3 days to get as far away as the Moon’s orbit, which is about a quarter of the way there. Getting Webb to its orbit around L2 is like reaching the top of a hill by pedaling a bicycle vigorously only at the very beginning of the climb, generating enough energy and speed to spend most of the way coasting up the hill so as to slow to a stop and barely arrive at the top.
Webb at L2
If Webb is orbiting the Sun further out than Earth, shouldn’t it take more than a year to orbit the Sun? Normally yes, but the balance of the combined gravitational pull of the Sun and the Earth at the L2 point means that Webb keeps up with the Earth as it goes around the Sun. The gravitational forces of the Sun and the Earth can nearly hold a spacecraft at this point, so that it takes relatively little rocket thrust to keep the spacecraft in orbit around L2.
Webb orbits around L2; it does not sit stationary precisely at L2. Roughly to scale; it is actually similar in size to the Moon’s orbit around the Earth! This orbit (which takes Webb about 6 months to complete once) keeps the telescope out of the shadows of both the Earth and Moon. Unlike Hubble, which goes in and out of Earth shadow every 90 minutes, Webb has an unimpeded view that allows science operations 24/7.
What is L2?
Joseph-Louis Lagrange was an 18th century mathematician who found the solution to what is called the “three-body problem.” That is, is there any stable configuration, in which three bodies could orbit each other, yet stay in the same position relative to each other? As it turns out, there are five solutions to this problem – and they are called the five Lagrange points, after their discoverer. At Lagrange points, the gravitational pull of two large masses precisely equals the centripetal force required for a small object to move with them.