James Webb Space Telescope Launch — Official NASA Broadcast

we have uncovered wonders undreamt by our ancestors who first speculated on the nature of those wandering lights in the night sky [Music] crossed the solar system and sent ships to the stars [Music] but we continue to search we can't help it a central element of human future lies far beyond the earth [Music] [Music] if we crave some cosmic purpose then let us find ourselves a worthy goal [Music] you're looking at live footage of an ariane 5 rocket in kuru french guyana at the very top of that extraordinary machine one of the largest rockets in the world we find the most ambitious space observatory ever built the james webb space telescope and today is launch day from all of the people all around the world working on today's launch good morning bonjour buenos dias this is live coverage of the historic launch of the james webb space telescope i'm michelle thallar speaking to you from nasa's goddard space flight center in greenbelt maryland and i am very excited to be with you today today the james webb space telescope begins its journey to explore the edge of our observable universe and its journey into history as well this launch has been years in the making and the world has turned out to watch we'll have a lot to discuss both before and after launch but let me set the scene for what's going on around us well i'll be anchoring coverage from here at nasa goddard the big stuff happens today here at the santa space shell guiness the guiana space center in french guiana this is the main launch site for the european space agency a close partner in this once in a generation mission and the home of all ariane launches katie haswell is there at the launch facility and joins me now live via satellite okay how are things in career katie michelle things are looking really good the boards are green uh the mission controllers are focusing hard the we are go for launch we've had our eye on the weather last couple of days the weather's been a little bit in clement so we're keeping an eye on that but otherwise everything's looking absolutely great and i have to tell you there is just such a buzz of excitement here in the mission control center it's an unremarkable feeling um right now we're topping up the tanks on the upper stage of the vehicle so we've got two great big arms called cryogenic arms and they clamp onto the upper stage and they pump in the cryogenic fuel which has to be kept very very cold so it has to be topped up right until the last minute because it can evaporate you'll see those arms kind of falling away just before launch in the last couple of seconds so up here in the sky booth in the mission control center we have nasa's rob navies and the european space agency's loose fabricate they're standing by hi guys standing by to take on the commentary when we get to about 15 minutes to launch but right now michelle all the boards are green we go for launch back to you michelle we'll be coming back to katie for the final phases of the countdown in just a little bit so i'm an astronomer and this launch is a huge deal for me i am personally really really excited but why is this such a big event for everyone the web telescope is nothing less than humanity's next effort to move closer to understanding some of the biggest questions about the origin of our universe it is not just the origins of distant stars and galaxies but it's the story of us you and me how we got here and speaking of questions we'd like to include yours in this historic event on whatever platform you're watching our coverage drop your questions with the hashtag ask nasa later in the broadcast we'll answer some of them live on air it can't be said enough that this is a mission for anyone who's ever looked up at the night sky and wonder people all over the world are sending in their best wishes for the success of web and let's look at some of them now [Music] feel successful congo norima's web [Music] heartache should i we're still on track for a launch at 7 20 a.m eastern u.s time two days ago the rocket rolled out to its launch pad in kuru of course there's already been a lot of activity at the launch site primary fueling procedures were completed early this morning preparing the giant ariane 5 rocket for flight let's watch the scene for a moment [Music] do [Music] [Music] we know the world is watching today humanity begins its next bold adventure to extend ourselves out into the cosmos this is something we do as a whole planet all of us together befitting the global importance of this initiative let's review some of the basic facts about the observatory shared by people all over the world who are looking forward to the web mission the entire world is looking forward to the launch of the james webb space telescope let's hear more from a people around the globe about what makes webb a scientific and technological marvel proximo a principal oh [Music] thousands of people all over the world have worked for years to get us to today's launch the core partners nasa the european space agency and the canadian space agency are the principal players but a vast core of engineers scientists private companies and more have had a hand in building this one-of-a-kind scientific platform without a doubt this is the most complex spacecraft ever built with revolutionary technologies daring mission goals and a whole lot of personal passion and commitment we'll hear from our partners later in the broadcast but first let's hear from someone representing the science community with a rare perspective about space exploration hello i'm isa astronaut matthias maurer currently living and working on the international space station iss i'm very excited to follow the james webb space telescope's launch with you all from space even with the naked eye we astronauts see that the stars are incredibly sharp and brilliant once we are outside the earth's atmosphere james webb space telescope would be the largest and the most powerful telescope in space yet and it was built to study the big questions questions like where do we come from how did galaxies form like our milky way how are stars in planets born like the sun and the earth might there even be lives on other planets the james webb space telescope is a joint project between nasa the european and the canadian space agencies and by tens of thousands of people with origins in many countries it will be used by scientists everywhere on earth [Music] nasa goddard is the home of the webb telescope with big sections designed and built here but actual mission operations take place here this is the mission operations center or mock at the space telescope science institute in baltimore after launch this facility will command and control web for the duration of the mission we'll be looking at the mock at key moments throughout the broadcast and this will become a familiar location for viewers in the weeks ahead as the web team begins to set up the telescope for work in space so as we move closer to launch we'll actually keep a picture of the launch facility right here on the screen but for the next 10 minutes or so we're going to talk about some of web's principal science goals if you've ever seen a telescope before i'm certain it didn't look like this of course the look of this particular machine is a direct result of the scientific questions that's been built to pursue so fortunately we've got an expert pair of guests with me this morning to help explain those science goals and much more so i'm joined now on the set by nasa's deputy project scientist for exoplanet science nicole colon and also uh with makarita makarina garcia marin the instrument calibration scientist for webb's mirroring instrument from the european space agency so welcome to you both thank you thank you so so this is our chance to kind of step back and talk about the science goals of web you know this is the part that really excites astronomers like all of us and um i know that there's unusual things about being an infrared telescope there are specific science schools infrared answers so maybe you could start us out nicole with uh you're an expert on exoplanets how is the infrared really important for your study sure well with exoplanets we want to study their atmospheres and as a reminder exoplanets are planets that orbit distant stars so we're looking for very small signals when we study their atmospheres and web is this giant telescope that we're able to use to collect these small signals and look for infrared signatures chemical signatures of water and methane and carbon dioxide those types of molecules in their atmospheres and why the infrared you know that's really because those signatures are the strongest in the infrared we know that they exist there and so that's why we want to use web to look there it seems an amazing idea so exoplanets plants around other stars are light years away from us tremendously distant so how do we know if it's water methane how can we probe an atmosphere so far away well with web there's a couple different ways but one of the main ways is actually using the transit technique and this is an indirect method where we actually detected the decrease in starlight that happens as a planet goes in front of its star but then imagine the planet has an atmosphere well there's an additional decrease in the starlight because the atmosphere blocks some light from our point of view and why it blocks the light is because there's usually a molecule or something in there like water and methane like i mentioned that is acting as an absorber and blocking the light from our telescope in this case web so going from you know the relatively nearby nearby stars and planets macarena you're an expert on very distant things distant galaxies so how does infrared contribute to your field of study so with web we're going to be able to observe the very first galaxies in itself we're talking about three and a half billion years ago so it's really mind-blowing if you think about it and why infrared well those galaxies emitted their visible light many many millions of years ago and that light travels so results in time and at the same time the universe expands so in that process of travel and expansion the light shifts from the visible to the infrared and so we will be able to actually observe those very original primaval galaxies and not only those but it will also allow us to observe everything in between so we can understand the evolution of our galaxy from the first ones to the ones we see today this is something kind of amazing so our eyes interpret different energies of light as different colors and infrared light is a color that our eyes are not sensitive to but like you said it's actually just the space of the universe stretching out the light and changing it from visible light into information right exactly so how are these first galaxies different from galaxies today well when you look at the images we have of the oldest galaxies we've seen they look like fluffier and clumpier we know they have a lot of star formation so that they are actually that's a really good symmetry too to measure them and they they are like little seeds that afterwards they merged and and cut together and evolved until the ones we see today which are like spirals and elliptical galaxies so from you know the the near universe to the far um one of the things that infrared is very good is seeing through dust that's another huge advantage maybe nicole could you sort of take us through that story sure you know with dust there's well first there's a lot of dust in the universe and but how stars and planets form in the first place they are forming these very dense clouds of gas and dust that come together and it's very difficult to see through them with normal visible light and so the infrared is actually able to see through that almost like an x-ray you know sees your bones sees through our skin you can use the telescope like web to see through the dust and see the inner stars forming or see some newly formed planets that are also very warm from having just formed and there's even a possibility of seeing some of the the very first stars or at least some evidence of the first stars that might have existed could you tell us a little bit about that macarena yes so the very first sisters they form right around the time of the very first galaxies even before that and so we'll be able to measure them maybe not the very first one but the first population of the stars which is really interesting because they were format of a very pristine material and then from there they evolved into more of all the stars that created all the elements we know today things like gold platinum carbon everything us were formed out of those original stars so it's a really it's a really amazing adventure to observe all these objects and understand them better yeah there's so many wonders in the universe and one of the things that i would never have believed was real unless i'd seen it the data with my own eyes is the trappist-1 system and that this is actually going to be one of the targets for web is that right tell us a little bit about travis sure trappist-1 is like you said it's going to be a target um there are seven planets in the system and they're all small around the size of earth actually so it's also a very compact system so it's not just that there's a lot of planets and that web is going to observe every single one of them but it's the compact nature that's just really fascinating because the entire orbit of the planetary systems like all seven planets they fit inside our orbit of mercury around the sun and mercury is our closest planet to the sun so imagine seven planets in there and you know there's a lot going on but it's very exciting because we'll get to learn and do comparative science and see are all these planets do they have the same chemical signatures in their atmosphere you know do they all have same amount of water carbon dioxide things like that well thank you so much we're gonna be back to talk to you more but thank you for joining me thank you thank you okay so we'll be back in some more minutes to uh to talk with them and remember that we're taking your questions so use the hashtag asknasa web looks like nothing that's come before because it's pursuing scientific goals like none that have come before it's taken years to prepare it for flight and as you might imagine plans of this scope and scale inevitably run into unexpected challenges along the way just like any of us it encountered things like snow storms in the east wildfires in california hurricanes that deluged houston texas and of course the global covet 19 pandemic which added its own profound challenges to the whole team this story really warrants a recap so check this out the web space telescope presented many engineering challenges but engineering hasn't been the only obstacle the team had to overcome in 2011 an outbreak of tornadoes cut electricity to the marshall space flight center in alabama for nearly a week while the team rushed to finish cryogenic testing on the primary mirror segments using power from diesel generators engineers had to endure a large snowstorm known locally as the snowmageddon while testing the integrated science instrument module at the goddard space flight center and of course everyone has had to contend with the global pandemic one particularly memorable challenge was working through hurricane harvey in 2017 this massive cyclone dumped 40 to 60 inches of rain across the houston area over a four-day period causing catastrophic flooding and 125 billion dollars of damage all while the telescope was undergoing cryogenic testing at nasa's johnson space center though the telescope remained safe inside the test chamber water leaked through the ceilings people had to cover workstations and plastic tarps food was in short supply and a few team members trapped by floodwaters had to be rescued by boat it was rough to say the least but the team and the telescope survived the storm despite winds and snow and endless rain the team got it done and webb is now ready for its final journey atop a rocket into space [Music] while the web telescope is a technological marvel everything here began with questions questions about how the first stars and galaxies came to be questions about whether planets around other stars might have environments that can sustain life and of course the promise of discoveries we can't even predict yet a few days ago i had a chance to speak with someone who's probably the best person on earth to help us understand what we know what we don't know and how web will help fill in those gaps dr john mather is a nobel prize winner who measured the big bang with an observatory built here at nasa goddard john is webb senior project scientist and we're so pleased to have you here today john good to be here with you michelle so to start this incredible story of webb let's start with something that's deceptively simple gravity there's something special about gravity gravity is special gravity always pulls it's the only force of nature that always pulls so that's special and what makes that special is it gravity although it's very weak is very long range it can reach across the universe and slow down the expansion of the material that came from the big bang turn it around pull it back together turn it into galaxies and stars and eventually planets and a place we could live so that's what makes gravity special among all the forces of nature and something so simple like just the idea that it's always pulling together that simplicity leads to wonderful complexity doesn't it yes because it's always pulling it's possible for gravitational energy to be converted into kinetic energy just heat and the universe becomes self-heating which is not something other forces could do all by themselves clouds of gas can be compressed by the gravity until they get big enough and hot enough to light up and have the nuclear reactions inside that turn hydrogen and helium into the chemical elements you see around you here in the house here on the set so carbon oxygen nitrogen everything we have that we think of as ordinary came from inside stars so we are stardust as carl sagan told us but there wasn't any stardust in the big bang so we need this part of the story to be figured out how did we come to be able to live here on our little planet when the universe started out without all of these goody things so you mentioned these planets around other stars so we're almost sort of going through all these amazing science goals of the web what can what can web tell us about planets around other stars well once in a while a planet goes in front of the star and some of the starlight goes through the atmosphere the planet if it has an atmosphere on its way to the telescope we will spread out that light into a spectrum or what you would call a rainbow and we'll analyze it to see what are the chemicals that are in that atmosphere so we will be able to tell you that maybe that's the plan whether those little planets that might be like earth actually could have for instance water in their atmosphere and maybe enough water so there could be a liquid ocean under that atmosphere one of the great questions so we know they're planets now we know when we should look uh we just don't know what we're going to see so i after the web launches one of my dreams i'm going to be standing outside of my backyard and point to a star and say there's a planet around that star that we know has water vapor oxygen perhaps methane carbon dioxide so what is webb going to also do in the search for life closer to home our own backyard well here in our own solar system we will be looking at everything from mars on outwards to the farthest we can see uh satellites comets asteroids and the planets themselves and some of them are really interesting and special because we know they're possible homes of life what would make a thing a home of life well if it's wet that's a good clue so the satellite europa which orbits around jupiter was discovered by galileo himself and we know now that it has an ocean that's covered with ice there's there cracks in the ice where water comes spitting out we nasa are going to send a probe over there to fly through those plumes we're also going to point over there with a web telescope to see what can see about that atmosphere and those plumes of water we'll be looking at titan which is a satellite of saturn which is so big that it has an atmosphere enough to fly a helicopter and it is cold out there so that what they have what is on the surface is solid ice and over that are liquid hydrocarbons which you would use for fuel here in here in our home but over there it's liquid rain lakes and rivers and we will be looking at the geology of that before we send the helicopter out there so you're on this amazing journey from the very distant early universe all the way to our own solar system but this has also been a personal journey for you you've been working on web since the very beginning of the mission is that correct i have since 95 we had our first conversation but people were even dreaming and imagining way before that what we needed and you could tell even before that we launched the hubble what were the possibilities and we learned that we would need an infrared telescope that could do things that hubble could not do well john i've been admired of yours for many decades now and it's an honor to be with you on this part of the mission so thank you so much for joining us best of luck on the launch and the mission ahead thank you for asking all these great questions the hubble space telescope delivered profound insights about our place in the cosmos but perhaps the biggest takeaway from hubble is that we've only just scratched the surface hubble gave us the best ever views of stars and planets forming inside vast dark clouds of dust but as soon as we had that data we were asking new questions that needed better measurements clearer images hubble was also able to capture images from galaxies so far away their light took 13 billion years to travel to us these different galaxies are just tiny dots and hubble's images tantalizing scientists with clues about how the first galaxies form in order to pursue a better understanding about the earliest days of the universe we needed to build a better time machine and that's webb so i'm going to be rejoined here by nicole and macarena and this is our chance to talk a bit about building that better time machine what about the technology of web so there's so many aspects of web to start off with but but maybe again going back to the theme of infrared the design of this telescope is so different because we had to use infrared light heat light so tell us about some of the challenges of you know for example why does it have to be so cool tell us about infrared light in the design right well i think uh we've heard already just how cool it has to be you know it's around or below 50 kelvin and that's minus 370 degrees fahrenheit actually below that is what it operates at and that's very cold and the reason we need it so cool is because we don't want the telescope itself to detect itself because there's there's several instruments on board there's four different instruments and you know there's some moving parts and so you need things to be cool because you want to detect these faint signatures from either an exoplanet atmosphere or you know faint light from the earliest stars and galaxies so you just don't want to detect your own telescope now the macarena you are the instrument calibration scientist for the coolest instruments it's also bit about myriad why it needs to be so cold so maybe it's a really unique instrument and it's a great example of this collaboration we have in this mission because it's half european half u.s and so mary is the only instrument on board that uses the meat in front of the light and the mediterranean light is a bit rather a bit cooler than the uh near refrigerator light and so because of that medium is to be colder enable in order to detect that very faint signal from hydraulic galaxies or protoplanetary disks etc so because of that it has it's the only instrument on board that has a cryo cooler so it is not only the passive cooling from the sunshield it is active cooling and it brings that and breaks it down to about minus 450 fahrenheit so it's really extremely cold a few degrees above the absolute zero and we were talking about you don't want the telescope to be so hot that it's basically giving off its own signal its own radiation and that leads us to why it needs to be in space right so tell us a bit about we know why do we need to launch this thing into space to see these wavelengths well again it kind of goes back to atmospheres because earth has an atmosphere and there's water in earth's atmosphere as one example i mean there's a lot of other molecules but basically in the infrared at the wavelengths that we want to observe some of these stars and and planets and galaxies those wavelengths are actually where earth's atmosphere is opaque so with telescopes located on earth even at higher mountains where they try to get above the clouds or atmospheres sometimes there's still residual atmosphere that we're trying to look through and peer through so in order to see the full infrared wavelength range at a very high sensitivity as well we need to go to space absolutely so we've talked a bit about some of the power of techniques like spectroscopy we've heard we've heard dr john mather talk about it so let's go a little bit more into the details of how spectroscopy works and why it's so powerful oh sure yeah i can keep going you know well with spectroscopy um we heard so visible light again is kind of it's a rainbow of colors that we don't see naturally but if you use something like a prism you can separate out that light and see all the colors from you know blue to red but then the infrared is redder than the human eyes can see but you can still do the same technique where you have a spectroscopy tools or instruments like web has all these spectroscopic tools so that we can break up the infrared light and look at certain colors if you will so that we can see certain features that we are looking for whether it's the right wavelength where you know a galaxy might be bright or where water is absorbing in an atmosphere so macarena miri has many different capabilities in fact it has one that i believe is something different called coronagraphy as well yes tell us a bit about all these ways that we're going to detect you know different signatures from planets so chronography it's an amazing technique but essentially it simulates an eclipse so when we have a very bright star with planets around for instance usually when you take an image the stars outshines the light of the planet so you don't see them but with midi and with other instrumentation as well you can actually block the light of the star and dim it and then you see the planets around and it's really that they need there's going to be very much used and and to do like in this image direct imaging of planet well thank you so much we'll be back to talk to you more with some social media questions thank you very much thank you nasa and its partners began developing the web telescope years ago growing from an initial inspiration to a design than schematics and finally reality what started as a big dream for studying the origins of the universe required best in class engineering expertise to transform into something real let's take a short look at the very long story about the earliest days of the james webb space telescope before the hubble space telescope even launched scientists were already discussing what should come next ideas for what was then called the next generation space telescope evolved throughout the 1990s and by the end of the decade nasa had a preliminary plan [Music] construction of the james webb space telescope began in 2004 beryllium was mined to create the mirror segments which technicians polished and coated in a thin layer of gold meanwhile engineers designed and built new science instruments in the u.s europe and canada every step of the way there were reviews and tests to make sure each part could withstand the rigors of spaceflight by the early 2010s the team began bringing individual components together at nasa's goddard space flight center in greenbelt maryland it was there that the mirrors and instruments began to coalesce into the grand machine we see today we've said before that the james webb space telescope is an incredibly ambitious mission big ambitions come with big challenges and that's certainly been the story of webb from the beginning the design of this observatory has been a balance between the boldest questions scientists have dared to ask and the cutting edge technology that our best engineers could offer the design for web evolved from earlier ideas of what a telescope could be another example of a delicate balance between desire versus capability to get a better understanding not only the mission's goals but also the mechanical guts of the observatory itself i recently got a chance to speak with a pair of engineers who know the anatomy of the web telescope better than just about anyone i'm here with keith parrish a senior engineer on the web mission and keith you brought something to show us today yeah yes i did so uh conceptually web sunshield is actually quite simple all we need is five tennis court size pieces of this material outstretched to protect the telescope from the sun so what i have here is an actual sample of that material this is just kapton it's so light yeah it's an industrial you can buy this and on you know it's commonly used and what we do is we buy it for web we seam it all together in small pieces and uh and then we actually coat it with special coatings to give it the what we call the thermal properties we need in orbit so this one has a nice pink or purplish kind of hue to it and the reason it's purplish and hue this we use this on the sun side and we actually put a silicon material on this cap ton and then we actually put a little bit of a metal in it and what that metal does is it gives us a nice electrical conductivity we don't want any surface charged surface charging building up and uh the other thing is this uh silicon coating actually drops the temperature of this layer so and also it's very durable and can survive you know for many many years in space and this whole thing has to unfold somehow where we could actually see that behind it exactly right so if you look at that animation there unfolding there so it's actually s folded up uh almost like a like a fan we we call it s folding and uh once we get it all folded up we secure it to a structure by actually pinning it for launch so you know a huge shout out to our mechanical engineer and our entire sunshield team because they've come up with some really clever ways to secure this for launch unfold it fold it and then you know ultimately get it safely deployed in orbit that's wonderful so speaking of unfolding and all these pins that need to release let's go over here and talk to uh james cooper you're going to show us what's going on there hi uh so i have here an example of a non-explosive actuator we have 178 of these these are all these little pins we're talking about james webb right 107 of the 178 are the membrane release devices and we use this type of actuator because it it produces a very low shock when it's released and the animation shows conceptually how it works we send an electrical signal through either one of our connectors we use both but either one of them can cause the release to happen it melts a small wire inside and then we have a spring that unwinds and allows two halves of an of a split nut to separate and then our pin can get extracted and so in the case of the mrds it's a spring-loaded pin that pulls to release the folded membranes in other places we would be bolting two pieces of structure together and then releasing them so we can deploy them and the sunshield itself has 107 of these 107 mrds that all have to work every single one every single one has to work and 178 of this type of device in various configurations around the entire observatory right well if we go over here we've got something sort of lovely waiting for us a big gold hexagon so to tell us what we're looking at a sort of a model here of a mirror right a full scale single segment one of the 18 mirror segments on james webb the real ones would be machined out of a single piece of beryllium to the exact curvature we need and then once we're deployed on orbit each segment can be individually focused to make it act as a single perfect mirror now that coating tell us about this gold coating here yeah so this is uh you know coated with a very thin layer of gold it's only a few hundred atoms thick of gold and and that gold is really good because it gives us a reflective property in the infrared and that's really what web is is an infrared telescope and we need that sunshield exists to to cool this entire telescope so this mirror actually runs about minus 400 degrees fahrenheit on orbit if it if it were warmer than that the infrared energy coming off of this that that heat energy would swamp our detector system and our instruments so that entire sunshield exists to cool all 18 of these down and again this this gold coating is what does helps with all that reflectivity to make it perform even better that's wonderful so you put it all together and we have a a smaller mock-up here the sun shield the mirror tell us what we're looking at here much much much smaller so yeah this is our entire observatory fully deployed on orbit and you can see the sun shield here is is a large feature you can see all five layers that i talked about earlier and it's the separation of those five layers which lets heat energy escape out the space before it eventually gets to this cold layer again that entire telescope is running minus 400 degrees fahrenheit and the way we get it that cold is this side is shaded the telescope is looking to the deep universe which is near absolute zero and then again this this layer here we've got about a 500 degree temperature drop so this telescope is also looking at this layer here which is nice and cold so that's what lets us you know harness thermal physics to cool this down to those really really cold temperatures again you can see our booms which are fully deployed and stretching this out and then ultimately all folds up and gets stowed into this structure for launch right so the membrane release devices would be along the back side of these structures on the forward and the aft side and we release them in rows so that we can sequentially start to unfold the membrane once those pins are pulled out of the way well that's wonderful thank you so much for joining us and best of luck on the launch i'm very excited thank you okay let's get a live launch status update from nasa commentator rob navies at the launch site rob how are things in crew well thank you michelle and merry christmas from the jupiter control center here in kuru french guiana you are looking live at an ariane 5 rocket on its launch pad ready to send the james webb space telescope on the initial phase of its journey the fueling of the ariane 5's first and upper stages began before sunrise and in the last few minutes mission controllers here in kuru and at the telescope's control center at the space telescope science institute in baltimore conducted polls with all positions reporting they are go to proceed into the final phase of the countdown launch controllers have been monitoring weather conditions throughout the night keeping tabs on clouds and wind speeds both at ground level and in the flight path of the ariane 5 ensuring that all of the precise commit criteria are acceptable for launch right now we have a green board no issues as the countdown proceeds no issues again being tracked by the flight control team here in kuru by the way our broadcast today is a collaborative effort between nasa and the european space agency so that's it from now from the ariane 5 mission control here in kuru we'll be back with you soon for now let's go back to the goddard space flight center and michelle fowler thank you very much rob so webb asks big science questions it demonstrates astounding technology it inspires and excites people to dream and wonder and the spark of inspiration is the ignition of creativity kids all over the world have a natural affinity for webb's big pursuits and now we have a collection of young artists ready to showcase their work hi everyone i'm kelly girardi and this is delta v and we're kicking off the unfold the universe challenge with nasa and the james webb space telescope nasa is hosting an unfold the universe art challenge use your imagination to share what you believe the web telescope will find i believe that the webs telescope will see galaxies stars planets the moon and don't forget our last stars [Music] up in the sky and really high it's space oh space thanks greta good job this is my picture of space [Music] hello my name is abraham i am from romania this is how i imagine space hello everyone good morning this is the drawing of distant galaxy that can be seen by james webb space telescope hi my name is anastasia and this is what i do what i think the telescope will look like with the telescope we'll see i drew the earth the sun a new planet black hole and stars so we've been fielding social media questions for viewers all over the world this morning and let's take a couple of minutes to share some responses there's been a couple questions about how long will it take for images to come out and there's a lot of things that need to happen before the images are coming so macarena why don't you take us through some of that yes so for the first scientific beautiful images to share with the public that'll take six months and the reason is because it is so we launch today it takes a month to take to the orbit place to the lagrange 2 point and then we have a whole period of cooling down the instruments aligning the mirrors and making sure that all the instruments are ready to decide so the whole process takes six months half a year and also all of those 18 segments of mirrors something needs to happen to get them all working together too right exactly because initially you launch with 18 segments and they work separately so you will take if you observe one star you will get 18 little points so there has to be a process where you take images with nirkham which is one of the cameras on board start moving the mirrors slightly to to make them work as a single one and by the end of this iterative process you go from 18 points to a very sharp pristine single point source so all mirrors act as a single one so let's see we have a question from lv coming in on twitter will webb be able to enhance detection of comets asteroids or meteors that enter our solar system so that seems we've got a planetary person here sure yeah well webb does have a special observing mode where it's able to track these rapidly moving objects because compared to these distant stars and galaxies asteroids and comets they move pretty quickly and so webb will be able to do this so that we can study uh material that's outgassing from them and learn more about what they're made of so let's see there's just so many good questions so we only have time for a few more so what is from uh from christian rodriguez on facebook uh how long will it take james webb to reach lagrange point two and he might also just explain what is lirage point two so it takes a month i think it's like actually 29 days to get there and the la reso point is this very interesting stable point so the gravitational pull between the sun and the earth create this point where it is a stable and you can as you can see there what can orbit around the l2 point in a very stable orbit only needs a little bit of corrections once in a while and it can always have the sun shield protecting the telescope from the radiation of the sun in a year in a full year you can observe any object in the sky and it's a continuous observation well thank you very much we'll hopefully come back to a few more questions later thank you so this is a big mission with a cast of thousands to bring it to life all over the world as we get closer to launch let's take a brief look at the main locations where webb took shape on its journey to space inside the massive high bay clean room and nasa's goddard space flight center engineers assembled the 18 gold covered mirror segments into the back plane of the telescope and integrated the four science instruments contributed by international partners to simulate the harsh environment of launch they went through vibration tests and acoustic tests and to simulate a space environment the instruments endured cryogenic testing in a large thermal vacuum chamber but it wasn't large enough to hold both the instruments and the mirrors so the telescope boarded a plane to houston texas to visit the only thermal vacuum chamber in the world big enough to fit the entire assembly chamber a at the johnson space center was originally built to test the apollo spacecraft and half a century later it provided a grueling 100-day test for the webb telescope [Music] next the telescope traveled to northrop grumman's facilities in redondo beach california to meet up with its other half the sunshield and spacecraft bus fully assembled at last the entire observatory went through yet more tests many focused on making sure the spacecraft could properly fold up for launch and unfold in space then in september 2021 webb caught a ride on a specialized cargo ship and set out on a 16-day voyage to the european space agency's spaceport in kuru french guiana according to its travel itinerary that's webb's last port of call on earth once web gets into space we're going to have some exciting things to tell you about what happens next from its extraordinary engineering to the thrilling scientific adventure it's about to enable us to undertake but launch comes first and for that i'm going to turn it over to katie haswell our host at the launch site and one of nasa's most recognizable voices launch commentator rob navis it's all yours katie thanks very much indeed michelle well it's all looking very good here at the spaceport for a christmas day launch operations running smoothly the countdown ticking over nicely all the systems are green and we are go for launch you can see there the we're looking at launch pad number three the james webb space telescope inside the very top of the rocket in first class with its seat belt on waiting patiently for liftoff that's scheduled in about 32 minutes time i'm in the mission control center here at the spaceport the nerve center of operations we're about 10 kilometers from that pad and behind me you can see uh it's a laser focus here in the control center with the mission control centers all on console there as we get closer to launch we call this uh the fishbowl behind this uh protected glass and up in their skybox here in mission control are nasa's rovnavius and the european space agency's loose fabriquette and they're standing by to take over the commentary about 15 minutes as we get closer to launch first of all though let's check in on the countdown and let's see how things are progressing with stefan israel stefan is the ceo of aryan space aaron space is the company responsible for getting our telescope into space today stefan thanks for joining us no pressure good morning how are things looking so we are now 31 minutes before liftoff so far so good iron 5 is ready web is ready the range is ready and the weather is going well that's that's good to hear so what can we expect to see what's going to happen yes so in the 30 coming minutes we will make the final operations 10 minutes before liftoff we will have the final authorization of the weather and seven minutes before liftoff we will enter in the famous synchronized sequence and i mean how's everyone feeling i'm guessing everyone's we launched for humanity this morning from the guyana space center you know what webb is about after well we will never see the skies in quite the same way it's an important project isn't it forever it's a very special mission but we have delivered already 111 times with aryan this is a 112 iron five so we will deliver this morning and everybody there in the control center cool calm and collected stefan thank you very much for having taken time to step out of the fish bowl for us so you can head back now into the fishbowl and take up your position stephan israel thank you very much indeed stefan of course heads up what we call the flight desk which is the um the the authority that takes all the final decisions in the event of unplanned situations now we are in french guiana we're on the northeastern coast of south south america we're in amazonia it's hot uh it can get a little bit sweaty sometimes and there are lots and lots of mosquitoes but somebody know who who knows it very very well is raphael chevre raphael is a rocket science uh scientist or a rocket expert at least from arianespace thanks for joining us raphael tell us a little bit more about french guiana well french green is a french territory that borders brazil it's located in the amazon rainforest 97 of the land is covered in trees so that's why it's so green and beautiful and you can totally imagine that the wildlife there is absolutely incredible this is actually one of the best preserved habitat in the world and of course it is in the jungle and yet it is actually the european spaceport so what makes this location in south america so important and so relevant well there are several reasons for this first we are on the coast it means that we can launch over the sea from north to east without having to fly over inhabited area so this is very convenient to reach any kind of orbit there is no hurricane here big tropical storm there is no earthquake but more importantly we are very close to the equator so that we can benefit from what we call the slingshot effect given by the rotation of the ears so let me take uh this globe basically here on the equator we are all traveling at roughly 1 000 miles per hour that's very convenient for of course we don't feel it if we were on the pulse that speed would be very very close to zero it means that when weight is right now on the launch pad inside the frame of the rn5 it's already traveling in the right direction and we can use this extra boost to get us into space that's also very convenient for web because doing so it can save its fuel and increase its operational life in orbit at one and a half million kilometers from here and that really is important a million miles isn't it and so there's a real proper slingshot effect and um the facilities here are ultra high tech and that's exactly what webb needs isn't it yeah that's very convenient for web it's also located in a nature reserve so this is the perfect meeting between nature and technology and people come from all over the world to work here but one thing that's been very important for web is cleanliness because you know that one spec of dust could alter the vision of the observatory in space that's why we have been extremely careful in keeping a pristine environment in all our facilities from ram's arrival in french vienna to sealing it inside the rockets so let's talk a little bit now about the web space telescope i really don't think you need me to tell you that it is the product of a feat of human ingenuity and you don't get to make a telescope as complex as the james webb telescope and as remarkable without tremendous amount of collaboration and the james webb space telescope is indeed the product of a partnership between three space agencies who came together to create it nasa the european space agency and also the canadian space agency so here to talk about that now is greg robinson from nasa greg thank you very much for coming to the floor out of the fishbowl as well for us and we're talking serious teamwork here aren't we uh yes katie uh we've benefited from an amazing partnership with the canadian space agency and the european space agency over the life of the development we've had more than 10 000 people actually touch webb 29 states in the us and 14 countries across the globe and not to mention the the amazing industrial base across the globe that have benefited here in order to do bold missions like this it takes lots of resources and lots of expertise so we maximize everyone's expertise and how did this bold mission get onto an ariane 5 european launcher so as part of the partnership the canadian space agency contributed science instruments and they're incredibly important for this mission and so did isa uh science instruments and the amazing ariane 5 that we will see take us on this journey and put us in the right direction to get to lagrange point too and we're looking forward to that it's a tremendous atmosphere here isn't it in the in the mission control center there's a real buzz here today i i wonder how you must be feeling greg i mean it's got to be a very very emotional time knowing that your telescope is sitting there on top of the rocket getting closer to launch it's certainly amazing uh often talk about the butterflies and people keep asking me have they started have they started and yes they're starting and when we get to about 20 minutes out uh they will start flying a lot so well excitement is just amazing the excitement is building and of course everyone very cool calm and collected thank you greg romson you can take your position back in the bowl now because i know you've got a lot of work to do in there greg robinson thank you very much indeed for joining us um so the ariane 5 launch vehicle is the heaviest lifter in the ariane 5 fam in the ariane family of launchers and raphael she has got an incredible track record hasn't she of success yeah this is a very reliable and successful successful rocket webb is going to be the 112th ariane 5 to be launched and the first the very first ariane the iron one took off exactly 42 years ago yesterday this was on christmas eve 1979. good symbol yeah and hopefully we're going to get a good christmas present today as well and i mean the rocket is also you don't get to build a rocket like this without collaboration either do you of course just like web actually in fact 12 different countries have been participating in the development of drn-5 with aryan group now being the industrial prime and we have a scale model right next to you raphael why don't you talk us through it the rocket is made of sections and we often call those stages which is what you might hear during the commentary exactly so first you have the two booster solid boosters that are located on each side of the rocket they will provide the main thrust in order to literally push the rocket against the gravity of the earth then you have these big tanks that form the um main cryogenic stage with the main engine vulcan at the bottom and then you have the web telescope right at the top inside the fairing it is right there on the launch pad and together they are put on top of the third stage a cryogenic stage and it is this upper stage that is going to place webb into orbit and what about the engines what are we going to see at liftoff at least up we first see the main vulcan engine ignite first we do this because we want to check it's prop it's working properly before we switch on the solid boosters seven seconds later once it's done there is no turning back the rocket is going to lift off and so yeah that's a very uh don't be surprised don't be surprised if you don't see the rocket lifting off for seven seconds that's time for the rocket to actually warm up before sewing into the sky so once we light the touch paper you can count to seven uh before it actually lifts off now one of the advantages of the ariane 5 vehicle is that it can be modified and that's exactly what we've done for today's launch we've had to make some changes for it to be able to host the web satellite and joining me to talk about that is somebody who the right person for the job indeed because he was in charge of those uh changes daniel de shaumbra from the european space agency thanks for joining us daniel what did you have to do first we need to recall that web will be the largest payload to be ever accommodated on a on i5 it fully occupies the volume of the fairing with gaps as small as 10 centimeter for a diameter five meter it is a reason why we had to develop a specific integration procedure to ensure that there is no contact with them after separation during separation sorry the advancing system of uh of the launcher has been improved in order to balance as much as possible the inside and the outside pressure of the fairing and this is to to due to the fear of depression depressurization shock which could damage the delicate layers of web some essential after separation the due to the fact that some equipment of web are very sensitive to sun exposure the roll control of the launcher will be tuned in order to make sure that web is always oriented only one face to to the sun and uh in addition to avoiding your spot uh the launcher will be crea will create some oscillating movements like a bbq mode to avoid any over overheating and after after web separation uh there will be a specific end-of-life maneuver to to be applied on super stage in order to put it on the liberation orbit around the sun in order to avoid collision in the in the long term thank you very much indeed daniel so we'll hopefully see the uh upper stage rocking in space not quite all the way around like the familiar barbecue but a slightly different movement listen gentlemen thank you very much indeed for being with us today i know that you're busy you've got jobs to do inside the fishbowl so i'm going to send you right back there now and very best wishes for the launch thank you thank you our telescope has a long journey ahead of it it's got to travel a million miles to its destination in space it's working zone where it's going to start telling us all about our universe it's already started that journey because it's travelled to the launch pad from los angeles after final tests were concluded in los angeles webb was packed into a special container and transported along the la 405 freeway which had to be closed because it's so big [Music] it traveled on a special ship a lot of spacecraft will come to the french guiana launch site by plane but webb was too big for that so it had to travel by ship and it went through the panama canal up through the locks and it took 16 days to get to the port in kuru where it was unloaded and traveled to the spaceport that's not the real ariane 5 that's a model just outside the jupiter control center actually it was unpacked very carefully in the facilities that raphael was talking about and then fueling started and of course the teams had to wear special suits because that's a dangerous job and then it was placed all the way on top of the ariane 5 rocket [Music] it was encapsulated inside the fairing and sealed and then it was rolled out to the launch pad two days ago from the vehicle assembly building to the pad along very special rails very very slowly through the amazon rainforest it was raining at the time and that was two days ago and here we are now 17 minutes and 46 seconds to launch and counting all systems are go here at the european spaceport in french guyana we have three control centers on the job today we have the mission control center here we also have the launch control center which is about a mile from the pad and then we also have the telescope control center mission control in baltimore in the us and that's where the operational teams are standing by to take over the telescope operations once it's released from the mothership that will be about 27 minutes after launch they'll be controlling the web telescope for the rest of its life very important job the james webb space telescope is a truly remarkable observatory people have been working on it for over two decades some people have been working on it for their whole professional lives uh thomas zubrucken is the head of science at nasa and he's joining me now just to talk about it's thomas i mean or dr z as uh we can also call you the day has come all these decades all this time all these people working on the telescope and here we are 16 minutes and counting to launch it's a big day huh oh i'm so am i amazed right we have this telescope on top of this rocket a telescope that 10 000 plus people have worked on in many ways and together with that telescope all the hopes and dreams of those individuals and also tens of thousands of scientists some of them not even born that will benefit from these data are there with them waiting for these last minutes of countdown for its journey to space i'm guessing people are feeling a combination of emotional excitement what's going through people's minds do you think oh i think there's a tremendous sense of accomplishment whenever you're on top of a rocket many things went really really well there's tremendous pride there's always a little bit of anxiety we know launching is hard we have one of the absolute best teams in the world working on this right now so i'm confident in that we're super excited i mean it's just an amazing day today and and what are you most excited about dr z well i'm i'm a scientist so for me besides the technology that really is a marvel i mean it's really the best we can do what i'm thinking about is really looking at the universe in new light we have never seen the universe how web will show it to us and can you just imagine going back in time thirteen and a half billion years it boggles your mind even as a professional astrophysicist kind of just think about all the new things we're gonna learn about our most beautiful universe dr z thank you very very much for joining us and i i want to wish you and all the teams everybody the very best for for today's launch thank you so yes indeed go web so we are now 14 minutes and 30 seconds to launch we're getting really close now everything's going well all systems are green for launch and i'm going to hand you over now to nasa's rob naviers in the sky box alongside the european space agency's luce fabregate who are going to take on the commentary from here on in over to you guys rob well thank you katie merry christmas to our worldwide audience from our broadcast booth high atop the jupiter control center here in kuru joining me today for this historic launch my colleague loose fabrigate the head of infrastructure and value chain for the european space agency lewis good morning it's great to be with you great to be with you today very pleased to be here with you and all of you watching us for this very special event well at this hour countdown clocks are ticking backward we are at t minus 13 minutes 32 seconds and counting out on the launch pad everything is in great shape don't let those clouds fool you we are go for launch the latest weather briefing just completed indicated that all weather parameters are green we have a green board here in the control center and everything has gone extremely smoothly in the countdown about nine minutes ago a major milestone passed as the james webb space telescope began the process and completed the process of receiving commands to transition from external power to internal battery power following the latest in the series of those weather briefings webb will remain on internal battery power until its singular solar array unfurls about 30 minutes after launch earlier telescope controllers reported good environmental readings from sensors inside the fairing encapsulating the telescope atop the upper stage of the ariane 5 rocket and loose as we enter the most critical phase of the countdown can you outline some of the upcoming critical activities as we head into the phase called synchronized sequence yes rob we are now reaching the end of this uh 11 hour sequence that we call the chronology and that started yesterday evening all systems here i've been prepared for the final launch operations and at the time being it's quite it's it's it's rather quiet now inside the launch table and also inside the launcher we were told a few minutes ago by the launch control center here that the launcher fleets and electric systems are ready for the final automated sequence they are on alt now waiting for the last weather report at minus 10 minutes after this weather report three minutes later we will have the beginning of this famous synchronized sequence when all systems will be made ready for the liftoff this sequence will first be ran by the ground calculator and then the on-board computer will take the lead step by step and the launch vehicle will be made autonomous from the ground system you know that we have two tanks in each cryogenic stage upper stage and main stage all four tanks are of course thermally insulated from the hot environment where we have here in french guyana however these liquid propellants are at very low temperature and because of that slightly evaporate and to ensure they are perfectly loaded at liftoff their final loading and topping up will last up to four minutes before the launch so that will be the beginning of the synchronized sequence run by the ground calculators then we will have on the free side the end of the the topping the final loading and the topping up of the of the different tanks and on the electric side we will add the onboard computer getting prepared for the launch also and it will be uploaded with the hero with the h0 time the time for the for the liftoff which is today at nine at the beginning of the window 9 20 local time 7 20 eastern time and lose so we're coming up on that final weather report we expect all systems to remain green we'll be going down to the fishbowl to confirm that just a moment or two from now it's a 27 minute ride to orbit from liftoff until the time that the web observatory is separated from the upper stage of the arian 5 rocket several minutes later the commands will be given to unfurl its solar array followed by the confirmation from the telescope controllers in baltimore that we are power positive meaning that electrical current is flowing through that solar array with us today inside the so-called fishbowl seated with mission controllers on the floor of the control room is rafael chevrier of ariane spas raphael how's everything looking what's being discussed down there hi rob well so far so good we just received the last uh weather forecast it's all green for the age zero that is uh forecast right now what we checked was altitude winds went in the vicinity of the launch pad and risk of lightning so right now uh it's it's a relief because the the the weather was a bit tough in the last couple of days but right now everybody is very focused on the next steps the start of the synchronized sequence at seven minutes before liftoff last operations that lose described earlier before webb and the iron5 are going to lift off and soar into the sky thanks raphael we'll be back with you and luce here shortly that we now have confirmation from baltimore that james webb is on internal power amidst all of this activity we cannot forget that it is christmas day 53 years ago the astronauts of apollo 8 completed their 10th and final orbit of the moon after reading from the book of genesis on christmas eve to billions of people watching with rap detention back on our planet the astronauts then headed for home following their spacecraft's trans-earth injection burn today more than a half century later we're just minutes away from another genesis the genesis of new era of discovery the launch of the james webb space telescope is at hand we're just 38 seconds away from entering the critical synchronized sequence you're going to be hearing uh all the critical calls from the ddo the range operations manager uh who is jean-luc voyeur here in the uh launch in the mission control center there he is he will be calling the start of synchronized sequence all of the critical countdown milestones and we will be uh listening very intently for his calls let's stand by for a second and with that we've entered the period of synchronized sequence you heard loose fabric yet just a moment or two ago explain some of the critical activities the first one coming up just a few seconds from now which will be the topping off of the main stage tanks the first or core stage was loaded earlier this morning with 175 tons of propellant 150 tons of liquid uh oxygen and 25 tons of liquid hydrogen the upper stage loaded with 15 tons of propellant that will be the workhorse for a 16 minute burn to lift james webb to its final orbit uh at separation some 27 minutes and seven seconds after launch james webb will be at an altitude of about 864 statute miles to put that into perspective some 520 miles higher than the hubble space telescope and more than 600 miles higher than the international space station web at that point will be traveling about 21 000 miles an hour as it heads out to a highly elliptical halo-like racetrack orbit some one million miles from earth to begin its scientific observations in a little more than one minute from now we will see the four tanks pressurized at the flight level for the last tests before the ignition of the vulcan engine and in parallel the electric system are also set in flight configuration the board computer the electrical power as for the telescope it will switch from ground to internal power one minute before the launch one minute and five seconds before the launch and we are going to see minus six seconds at minus six seconds we will see the disconnection of the upper stage this big cryo technique arms you can see on this on this picture then three seconds before the h0 the inertial platform that will give all the information about where it is to the launcher will be released and at h0 the seven second sequence to ignite the volcan engine of the main starch stage will start that will take seven seconds a little less than seven seconds where the engine will start up to its flight regime once the computer has checked that the vulcan engine is running normally and you will see at that point of flame going stable at the outlet of the nozzle and at that point the onboard computer will ignite the two boosters that will enable to move the 770 tones of ariane and webb coming up on the t-minus four minute mark right now just a couple of milestones real quick at the one minute five second mark into the flight ariane 5 will go through the period of maximum dynamic pressure max q as it's known uh that will be the period of maximum aerodynamic forces on the rocket itself the solid rocket boosters which will provide about 90 percent of the initial thrust off the launch pad will uh shut down and separate at the two-minute 21 second mark into the flight followed a minute and five seconds after that by faring jettison that will expose the james webb space telescope to uh the environment of flight for the first time the main stage separation of the first stage separation comes at the t minus at the eight minute 47 second mark into the flight and that will be about a 16 minute burn of that upper stage engine it will cut off at about 24 minutes 51 seconds into the flight and then we'll go into a coast phase of about two and a half minutes to allow any oscillations to dampen out provide the most pristine environment for the james webb telescope before observatory separation we're coming up on the two minute 50 second mark into the flight again you're going to be hearing critical calls down the stretch here from the ddo or the range operations manager jean luc voyer the weather is go we have a green board no issues being worked nasa officials including greg robinson on the right uh carefully uh watching of the telemetry looking intently at the final couple of minutes of the countdown lives have been spent in the preparation of the james webb space telescope that is about to fly and beatrice romero is on his side on the left of the screen from iron space and that is the ddo the range operations manager jean-luc voyeur as we have hit the two-minute mark in the countdown the flight will be in two phases you will see the first part of the flight join the solid rocket boosters phase that will be the atmospheric part of the flight so atmospheric light and the trajectory will be driven by a very to to reduce the iron dynamic flows and we will have a very different export was very flight after that and and you were watching uh a number of people vips and invited guests moving out to the observation platform that is right next to the jupiter control center as we stand by for the one-minute call from jean-luc voyeur up thumbs up from jean-luc voyeur all systems are go we're inside a minute now t-minus 50 seconds and counting as you heard earlier the vulcan 2 engine will ignite turbo pumps will come up to flight speed for seven seconds and the command will be issued to ignite the solid rocket boosters the james webb space telescope will be on its way t minus 30 seconds and counting standing by for terminal count decollege liftoff from a tropical rainforest to the edge of time itself james webb begins a voyage back to the birth of the universe punching a hole through the clouds 20 seconds into the flight good pitch program reported [Music] vehicle performance is nominal [Music] the ariane 5 rocket continues to fly uphill in nominal fashion [Music] the rumble of the powerful ariana time now being felt here in the control center 3d animation we can hear the noise and feel the vibrations here you're right rob yeah impressive 13 kilometers in altitude seven kilometers downrange traveling uh about uh 0.6 kilometers per second the trajectory reported to be nominal by jean-luc voyeur the range operations manager you can see at the bottom of your screen the yellow line is the trajectory plot perfectly overlaid over the green line which was the pre-launch trajectory one minute 41 seconds into the flight about 40 seconds away from shutdown of the solid rocket boosters coming up on the two minute mark into the flight when it detects the threshold and acceleration this not the deceleration but uh less acceleration everything is okay everything is normal two minutes 15 seconds into the flight when the computer detects this threshold it will separate separation we have confirmation of solid rocket booster separation from jean-luc voyeur this coming at an altitude of 44 miles the ariane 5 and james webb traveling almost 5 000 miles an hour we have about one minute five seconds to go before fairing jettison that'll be the next critical milestone the fairing is there to avoid the satellite being exposed to high temperatures and also high airflows and as soon as the launcher leaves the atmosphere as is now the case the satellite does not need anymore to be protected and web does not need any more to it so each kilogram being very important for the performance of the launch we are going to eject this no more useful fairing and let's go down to the floor in the jupiter control center to rafael chevrier of arianespas raphael so far so good hi rob so far so good everything is nominal as we say when attitude and trajectory of the rn5 is going perfectly well as you can see also on the yellow on the screen we had the confirmation of the separation of the two side boosters and now of the fairing meaning that we have crossed the limits of the atmosphere so everything is going to be permanent and the ddo just said that all parameters are going perfectly perfectly smoothly so let's continue the mission and raphael this is a view from the upper stage camera called the vicky cam looking back at the james webb space telescope this is on about a 20-second delay or so because the way the imagery is processed here in the control room there's your telescope ready to unfurl its wings basically and begin its uh journey to it the lagrange point the l2 point about a million miles away from earth trajectory is nominal the report from jean-luc voyeur the liftoff time confirmed here in the mission control center at 12 20 greenwich mean time 9 20 a.m time 7 20 a.m eastern time the ariane 5 and james webb 181 kilometers in altitude 400 50 kilometers down range from the launch site here in carew flight control is very smooth and it's 12 seconds into the flight we have about three and a half minutes to go in main stage or first stage performance and again you can see at the bottom of your screen the yellow uh plot line overlaid over the green line meaning we are right on course right down the pike and a perfect trajectory so far for the ariane 5 all telemetry data are now received by the galio tracking station which is cl which is close to here where we are in kuru it will track the launcher after the ignition of its other stage and then we will have the natal station in brazil essentially in the as you can see on the map in the middle of the ocean and the two last stations in africa libreville and malindi one on the east coast the other one on the west coast and the one on the west coast malindi you can see that the satellite will be the telescope will be separated moreover more or less over this malindi station and this malini station will also acquire the telemetry data from the telescope you can see both agree galio and dental on this animation it means they are expected to receive the data and it was confirmed right now by the launch operations manager just confirming now that telemetry is being processed through the brazilian tracking station the telescope is also processing telemetry through the tracking and data relay satellite system as it moves further and further out into deep space all of the telescopes telemetry and its imagery ultimately will be processed through the deep space network in goldstone california would pass the seven minute mark into the flight a perfect ride so far on the ariane 5. we have about one and a half minutes to go in the first stage performance once uh the main stage engine is commanded to cut off it will be jettisoned and just a few seconds after that the upper stage engine will will ignite and it will be the workhorse for a 16 minute burn that will put james webb into its preliminary orbit about 11 minutes from now a telescope controllers at the space telescope science institute will be sending commands to prepare james webb for the initial uh series of commissioning activities uh that will lead to to the deployment of its solar panels and the initiation of generation of electrical power for the telescope about 30 seconds away from main engine cutoff trajectory normal nominal trajectory continues uh to be the watchword for the day from the range operations manager jean-luc voyeur as we stand by for main engine shutdown and separation extension and we have main stage shutdown and separation confirmed here on the mission control center and the ignition of that uh so far so good yes rob we have the confirmation of the separation of the main stage and the ignition the trajectory is perfectly nominal this is a very important moment for us because it's always a challenge to switch on a cryogenic engine in space condition and we are now at 220 kilometers of altitude speed is a bit more than seven kilometers per second as we enter now the second stage of the second phase of the flight the upper stage is going to power for about for about 16 minutes to place wave on its transfer orbit and right now everything is again nominal as the ddo just said and a short time from now uh the so-called sawtooth maneuver will get underway that again uh like rocking a baby in a cradle this will be a maneuver to keep webs protected from overheating loose exactly rob like maybe in a cradle uh you can see here web attached on top of iron five upper stage with a very specific configuration of course it will be different during its lifetime but for the time being it's it's it's sunshield is folded and not yet on the observatory a number of appropriations existing studies have been performed by the mission teams in in europe in the u.s on the temp thermal conditioning inside the telescope and the way the rays of the sun would propagate and interact with sensitive equipment inside the telescope the maintain this thermal conditioning is really key before separating this this telescope and in particular we know that one face of the telescope cannot face the sun that's why the and to produce these right thermal conditions inside the web specific role law has been designed what we call the sawtooth approach and if you are if you are watching carefully to these images you can see this animation you can see that the upper stage is going 30 degrees on one side that 30 degrees on the other side going back and forth this way to to maintain this perfect thermal conditioning for the for the telescope it's uh worthwhile noting that after from the upper stage of the ariane 5 rocket which continues to perform in excellent fashion at coming up on the 12-minute mark into the flight the telescope controllers will be taking the baton if you will from the mission controllers here in kuru the first steps will be the opening of fuel valves a pair of fuel valves to start flowing fuel to webb's onboard thrusters they then will power on the valve drive electronics those are powered on in preparation to control and fire those thrusters when required webb's solar array is scheduled to be deployed at approximately the 33 minute mark into the flight once it is locked in place we'll get the call uh that electricity is flowing through the array that call uh will come from the mission operations manager carl starr who is at the space telescope science institute at johns hopkins in baltimore uh seated right behind him in that control room is alicia starr uh a pair of stars are helping to guide james webb on its discovery of the stars alicia starr is the lead uh engineer for launch and ascent events once deployed then a three out of the four hold downs for the aft deployed radiator will be released to prevent binding due to the cooldown of the telescope's composite structure the contamination control heaters will be enabled to protect instrument optics on web from any water ice condensation as they cool down the actuator drive unit will be powered on this particular mechanism helps with heaters preventing water ice can condensation later to be used to position each of the mirrors segments all six reaction wheels and the wheel drive electronics will be powered on for web and that will be the precursor to the attitude control system using those reaction wheels to maintain the proper orientation with the sun as opposed to using onboard thrusters uh of course fuel uh in those thrusters very valuable it's a limited commodity for the lifetime of james webb's uh observations of the universe we're 13 minutes 55 seconds jean-luc voyer the range operations manager continues to report a nominal performance for james webb and again loose fabric from the european space agency uh how is this uh trajectory uh being uh carefully and methodically adjusted uh to provide the correct parameters uh in the final stages of ascent yes rob as you can see on this plot the the altitude is slightly going down it's perfectly normal the launch vehicle is really on the on the line where it should be this decrease of its altitude slight decrease of its altitude will allow the launcher to benefit and the upper stage to benefit the gravity effect and to increase its velocity until it reaches a thermal threshold it's about to reach it or even already reached it now and it will go up and now it will go up and up up to the separation of the web telescope it will separate the web telescope on a highly elliptic orbit but still around the earth the satellite the telescope will be released inserted on the object around the earth with an apogee a very high apogee above normal trajectory nominal as reported by jean-luc voyeur you see him in that view 185 kilometers in altitude uh some 4 500 kilometers down range from the launch site here in kuru moving at more than eight kilometers per second right on the plot right on the trajectory everything looking great we are about uh nine minutes away from the completion of upper stage ignition it's shut down and then about a two and a half minutes phase before webb will separate observatory separation will be called out you'll be hearing those calls and the initial calls from carl starr the mission operations manager at the space telescope science institute at johns hopkins through solar array deploy and the declaration of a power positive spacecraft you know james webb of course will be traveling well beyond the moon to a distance of about a million miles away from earth settling into a highly elliptical halo-like astronomical observations and again as we mentioned earlier at the time of observatory separation webb will be at an altitude of approximately 864 miles statute miles traveling some 21 000 miles an hour we're about eight minutes from upper stage a shutdown the stage has performed as planned no issues reported uh the launch occurring at 12 20 greenwich mean time 9 20 crew time 7 20 a.m eastern time on this christmas day velocity you just mentioned is very important from the velocity you just mentioned that separation of the telescope is very important it will be slightly below okay give it in a kilometer per second but it will be slightly below 10 kilometer per second because it's important that the satellite the telescope is not inserted on an escape orbit it will be placed on a terrestrial orbit so that there will be time for the location of the telescope and that will be in fact the upper stage that will leave this orbit and goes toward an escape liberation orbit and of course even uh though we're still in powered flight the trajectory the acceleration the speed at which james webb is going towards its preliminary orbit all modeled in advanced uh in advance and carefully choreographed and maintained as a quiescent an atmosphere and environment around the telescope for its ultimate separation from the upper stage of the ariane 5 rocket which is about six and a half minutes from now eighteen and a half minutes into the flight it's very quiet now here in the control center here in kuru nasa officials european space agency officials officials all watching uh telemetry very carefully and as the upper stage continues to burn nominally and sheds fuel the acceleration uphill for the james webb space telescope continues to increase as we approach the 20 minute mark into the flight again upper stage cutoff is scheduled at the 24 minute 51 second mark into the flight about five and a half minutes from now after the cutoff of this main engine as you say the rob we will have a short ballistic phase a short costing phase that will when when the upper stage will rely fully on its at what we call the attitude and role control system and it will adjust its its attitude so that during this small ballistic phase all the requirements from the telescope are fully met and that adds a separation when when there will be the separation the conditions will be very smooth and as requested for the telescope today's countdown was as flawless as you can imagine the weather was perfect all the way through the early morning hours through the fueling process of the vehicle the weather's been a bit dicey here in kuru over the past few days but everything fell together on this christmas day to send a new present to the world's astronomer 20 minutes 40 seconds into the flight all parameters nominal as reported by jean-luc voyeur the range operations manager four minutes of powered flight remaining the telemetry of the launch vehicle is acquired for the timing by the libreville tracking station on the western coast flight control is nominal the trajectory is fully normal fully as expected as you can see on the on the plot with the red with a yellow plot over the green one that is the expected one 22 minutes into the flight less than three minutes of powered flight remaining smooth flight control and again as we've mentioned before everything nominal reported by the range operations manager as we've mentioned before this is a long ride uphill for the james webb space telescope to put it at the proper position in the sky so that it can escape from the earth basically head beyond the moon towards its final orbit for its commissioning activities that will be the dominant feature of uh all of the operations from the space telescope science institute over the course of the next several weeks and the launch operations manager announced the acquisition by uh by binding the bike by the malindi station as expected for the last for the end of the flight and the last uh part of the upper stage flight and the separation of the telescope james webb is about four minutes away from separating from the upper stage and again at that point it will be on its own and again those milestones that we discussed a bit earlier in the broadcast will begin to be followed carefully by the telescope controllers at the mission operations uh center the mock as it's called at the space telescope science institute one minute of powered flight remaining the upper stage continues to function perfectly it's been a smooth ride for the james webb space telescope that upper stage was loaded pre-flight this morning with 15 tons of propellant for this long 16 minute burn now about 30 seconds away from upper stage cut off and we're standing by for upper stage shut down and the cut off of the upper stage engine the extension of the the shutoff of the cutoff of the engine was confirmed exactly as expected with the exactly expected altitude and speed and velocity so now we are we have entered the coasting phase ballistic phase that will last for a little more than two minutes and the telescope controllers uh in baltimore uh confirming that uh all of the uh function uh parameters for the james webb space telescope have been loaded on board the telescope we are expecting uh web separation at the 27 minute seven second mark here into the flight just over a minute from now springs will gently push web away from the upper stage of the ariane 5. as it moves further and further away from the upper stage there'll be what we refer to as a collision avoidance maneuver yes yes rob exactly the springs already will give some distancing of course between the two objects between the telescope and the upper stage and then the upper stage will leave the trajectory of the telescope and makes a special maneuver to pass the telescope and heads towards a liberation orbit and leaves the telescope on its on its orbit uh without any risk of collision and without any risk of pollution towards the telescope and we're about 17 seconds away from web separation [Applause] you do have confirmation of observatory separation the james webb space telescope amidst applause here in the mission control center now taking its first steps in pursuit of cosmological discovery it was a perfect ride to orbit and all of the separation sequence events are running in good fashion according to the telescope controllers and there is the view uh from the upper stage camera on the ariane 5 looking at the james webb space telescope as it moves uh gently away from its launch vehicle [Applause] fantastic pictures of this telescope go web yes go away ironically enough as we marvel on this view from the upper stage camera this will be humanity's last view of the james webb space telescope as it moves to its work place about a million miles away from earth yes you're right rob impressive fantastic pictures yeah now we'll be hearing uh shortly from the mission operations manager at the space telescope science institute carl starr who will be uh calling out the procedures that will lead to the deployment of webb's solar array and down in the fishbowl where there is jubilation let's go to raphael chevrier of arianespas and before we do that uh raphael uh a bit earlier than planned but there is the solar array having been deployed james webb now uh has its array out as we stand by for confirmation that it is power positive hey rob [Music] foreign and there it is there's your critical call james webb not only has legs but it has power as it uh begins its journey and the commissioning activities to follow and with that let's go down to the floor uh in the fishbowl and rafael chevrier of arianespas this is it we have witnessed and the confirmation that rn5 have safely delivered wave into space the upper stage is now being placed on a safe escape orbit around the set but honestly i've got to tell you that these images are absolutely incredible and well it may be the end of the mission for in space but it's only the beginning of the journey for a web it's now on its way to the lagrange point congratulations to all the team involved in the flight really there is no words to describe the emission that is happening right now in the fishbowl so all i can say is good luck web and bring us incredible data from the deep universe at that point our sequence will continue well raphael congratulations on a perfect ride to orbit from the ariane 5 out of peru here today a view here in the space telescope science institute their work just beginning on a new era of scientific observations loose fabricate it was a smooth ride to orbit everything went by the book almost like a simulation without any problems and we thank you for all of your insight throughout the course of the day thanks to europe and really a great achievement i have many faces and names now coming up to my mind and really you can be proud of what what was achieved on both sides of the atlantic ocean thanks a lot to you tremendous jubilation here in the control center you're looking at jean-luc voyeur the range operations manager quite a christmas present for the world's astronomers as the james webb space telescope begins its life heading towards deep space with that uh we're going to go back to the floor now to uh katie haswell katie we did our thing it's up to you now oh my goodness i just can't tell you it's such utter jubilation here on the floor in the jupiter control center everybody's been whooping with joy jumping up clapping whooping with joy people hugging and i have to say i ha my throat was caught as i saw that the glimpse of sunshine um on web solar panels as as we watched it heading out into space on its journey to its working zone it's going to take about six months before we start getting um our deep space observations from where of course the teams have got a huge amount to do before we get to that and our best wishes with all those teams in baltimore i want to get some reaction right now everybody is talking and hugging each other because they're feeling so excited and i totally understand that let's start though by going over to the nasa administrator bill nelson sofia okay okay administrator bill nelson right now looking at these jubilant scenes here in the mission control center in kuru the european spaceport in south america there are the teams the mission controllers have done a fantastic job it was an utterly flawless launch from the european spaceport here on the equator in the amazon rainforest hoping to go over now to nasa administrator bill nelson to get some reaction from him all stations seven and a half minutes give or take until the sequence continues with our adir release part 1 and our tcs configurations [Music] enough killing the jw6 can pick [Music] [Music] all right [Music] [Music] hey the range operations manager has been calling out the milestones throughout the flight today and the esa teams responsible for so much fabulous work great teamwork here to get the web telescope into space and web is now heading out on its journey on its own with the mission controllers the telescope mission controllers in baltimore following those incredibly important first actions and first operations charlotte besco there who's responsible for the esa operations here at the spaceport we're hanging in there waiting and hoping to hear from the nasa administrator bill nelson who i have absolutely no doubt will be as jubilant as everybody here at the guyana space center i think most of her professional life in human space flight and now heading up the easter operations here at the european space port [Music] [Music] over to you bill nelson [Music] okay katie thank you very much this is a great day not only for america for our european and canadian partners but it's a great day for planet earth thanks to the team you all have just been incredible and over three decades you've produced this telescope that is now going to take us back in time it's a time machine it's going to take us back to the very beginnings of the universe we are going to discover incredible things that we never imagined and isn't that typical of this team where the impossible comes possible i can't thank you enough on behalf of a grateful united states government i can't thank our our partners in europe and canada enough uh the french launch team the ariane spice uh the flawless uh perfection of the vehicle and now we have to realize there there are still uh innumerable things that have to work and they have to work perfectly 344 of them but we know that in great reward there is great risk and that's what this business is all about and that's why we dare to explore the james webb space telescope is very much a part of that exploration it's significant that we had the delays and it kept us all the way to today christmas day when others long ago peered up into the sky and saw stars but it's uh also another millennia before that that a shepherd grazing his sheep would look up at the night sky he became a poet and he pinned the words the heavens declare the glory of god the firmament shows his handiwork that shepherd that poet became king and those immortal words in psalm 19 encapsulate the expressions that we have today the handiwork of god as we peer back in time over 13 billion years ago capture the light from the very beginning of the creation my congratulations to the team my congratulations to nasa to our partners go james webb space telescope god bless you and god bless planet earth back to you katie bill nelson thank you very oh bill nelson thank you very very much for those incredibly moving words indeed we're heading out to look at the first light of the universe and uh bill nelson there we have stefan israel with us from aryan space bill nelson there being so complimentary about the partnerships the teamwork and and thanks as well to to you guys for this fantastic launch what a day stefan indeed what a christmas gift today from the guinness pest center we really want to thank nasa for its trust the administrator bill nelson we have with us thomas zoboron and all his team and uh a journey of 20 years we have met together we have worked as hell i would say to make this happen and now it's done i want to thank as well isa with formerly our contractor for this launch we have josef ashbar with us we have danian lunchman there we have worked and by end to make it happen i want to thank kness iron five design authority and our daily partner here in the guiana space center philippe batiste is with us mayan clare is with us thank you very much to kness for sure i want to pay my tribute to aryan group which is the prime contractor of iron5 mentioned of aryan space and which has delivered the launcher up to liftoff and doing so i pay also my tribute to iron space team the iron space team i've worked all this year to make this 14th launch of the year and this very special mission your dedication your professionalism has made the success of tonight tonight is a great step for the space journey it is also a great step for the friendship between the united states of america europe and france so thank you very much to all of us and now i think we can take a little bit of a rest but we are going now to live with webb up to its final destination to the lagrangian point thank you very much thanks a lot thank you very much stefan and the director general of the european space agency is joseph ashbacher joseph so merry christmas to everyone and we have delivered a christmas gift today to humanity to people to nasa but also to all the people in this world because with this chance web space telescope we are really enabling new science new excitement but also really rewarding all the engineering and all the effort that has gone into it and i'm really grateful for this success where we have uh delivered a mission into space it's power positive uh everything is nominal and i'm very grateful to aryan space and all our partners for all this work stefan israel has already thanked all our partners but let me also just very briefly recall that this was really a team effort it was a team effort of the european team we call it the team europe the european space agency obviously providing the launcher with uh aryan space with kness with aryan group with all our partners which we have to make this possible and i really would like to spend a minute to thank all the people involved in this today is christmas some of them are here have been spent weeks uh here in french guiana or at the site sir where they've been working it's a special moment i know i have made sacrifices but it's a special moment and really thank you for my heart but also thank you nasa bill nelson was so speaking before thomas joe buchne is here with his team fantastic cooperation and this cooperation between nasa and european team is really exemplary and a big big thank you thomas and your people for what you have done together with us that you have entrusted this precious spacecraft to us which we could deliver and i'm so happy today i can tell you this is a very special moment it's very nerve-wracking i couldn't do launches every single day this would not be good for my life expectancy but i can tell you this was very exciting very nerve-wracking but really really very successful and thank you from my side and congratulations nasa congratulations science community big sciences to come and really really happy thank you for my size so the president of the canes which is the french space agency is uh philippe baptiste and he joins us now philippe thank you very much well as everybody here in the room i'm very very happy to see that everything was fine everything is nominal it's great news great news for nazar for isa for all of us uh i just want to thank all the people who have been working over the last 20 years on this on this incredible instrument on this telescope but also people who have been working on the lounge i'm thinking especially on the 500 people who had been working uh yesterday yesterday during christmas eve to prepare to prepare the lounge to prepare this successful launch and i really want to thank you so thank them very much uh people from knes from uh from isa from nasa from ins past and from all the partners were around i also want to to give a special thank to the french armed force of lyanna who make who made this lounge possible they were monitoring everything and without them nothing would be possible here on this side so thank you very much for all of them and thanks also to uh all people from guyana who are supporting uh this incredible european spaceport that we have here today thank you very much so we now have a pre-recorded message from lisa campbell who is the president of the canadian space agency i am so proud to witness the highly anticipated launch of this extraordinary mission it's a remarkable feat of international collaboration to think of all the scientific and engineering coordination that made today's events possible in fact webb is the result of close to 25 years of planning and development with our international partners we're playing a big role in the world stage canadian excellence has helped make this flagship telescope a reality our participation in web is extremely significant it's the largest space science project in the 60-year history of our space program the successful launch of this groundbreaking telescope bolsters humanity's quest for knowledge of the cosmos and ignites interest in astronomy for a new generation the canadian space agency is proud to have contributed critical instruments to this large-scale partnership as part of a global effort to spur the next great scientific leap we're thrilled to take part in a mission of such enormous scientific promise canadian astronomers are excited to use webb's data and benefit from the tremendous science opportunities offered by this one-of-a-kind observatory we congratulate the fantastic team of over ten thousand people who put all their skills ingenuity and effort into developing the telescope for more than two decades web canadians will follow your journey with great interest and now i'd like to hand you over to thomas the brooklyn who is the head of science at nasa thomas well katie what an emotional day what an emotional time we're here all of us who have been working together for so many weeks months and years and more importantly our teams are taking team images behind us who have put in front of their lives as a highest priority for so many of them to actually get this done and get it done here working even during the holiday times i just couldn't be more grateful to the many uh whether it's aryan spas ness the european space agency all the amazing people around the french kiana the the forces that are here all the good people that have been such great hosts to our teams all of them i want to thank you know whenever we look at launches they're both an ending in the beginning they're an ending of an engineering project on the ground and with many uh amazing hours and challenges that are there but they're a beginning they're a beginning of one of the most amazing uh missions that humanity has conceived and i'm so excited uh to look forward to the next setup of this telescope and all the signs to come thanks to everybody this is what we can do when we come together kds1 humans it's just absolutely incredible it's wonderful and dr z thank you very much massive congratulations to you all to everybody who's involved in today huge congratulations from everybody here at the guyana space center and also our very best wishes to all the teams in baltimore who are now monitoring those early operations of the telescope as it starts to unfold i'm going to hand you back now to um to goddard but before i do i just want to say from all of us here at the guyana space center merry christmas over to you michelle thank you katie i can tell you that here it feels like the dawn of a new age historians of the future will divide our understanding of the cosmos into eras before web and after web web is this milestone that marks a bold effort to look backwards in time to the mysterious origins of everything of course we move at human time scales so here's what's coming up in the next few weeks engineers will unfold webb's critical sun shield to begin chilling the telescope to unimaginably cold temperatures they'll extend the dta the deployable tower assembly the structure that supports the great golden mirror and then finally they'll unfold that mirror and begin the process of fine-tuning the system for work through it all we intend to bring you live coverage of all of the important events that are happening as long as along with expert commentary and extraordinary images from the mission operations center and our own broadcast headquarters here at webb's home the nasa goddard space flight center stay with us over the next few weeks because the adventure is just getting started speaking for everyone on the team it's been a great pleasure to be with you here today i'm michelle thaller and you've been watching special live coverage of the historic launch of the james webb space telescope thank you for joining us you

Channel: NASA

Views: 10,611,113

Keywords:

Id: 7nT7JGZMbtM

Length: 137min 30sec (8250 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 25 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/kkehoe5]

This thing took so long to get to the launch, I’m so glad everything went smoothly. Imagine if the vehicle was lost during liftoff. How long do you think it would be before they were ready to launch a new one?

[u/StereoTypo]

Hooray! Now we clench our buttholes for 29 days as it approaches L2

Edit: corrected the timeline

[u/gingeropolous]

Yeah, 2022 is the year we definitely need a new perspective of our place in the cosmos

[u/FurtiveAlacrity]

I know a guy who worked on that and he is preoccupied at the moment. It's not over yet. They are right now doing calculations to get this thing set up right and they only have one chance to get it right.

[u/senblade_samuari]

People don't know how much this is going to change the world in our understanding of the universe, we are going to see some shit that is going to blow our minds.

[u/BeholdMyResponse]

I thought this was going to be the awesome "trailer" that NASA made for the James Webb telescope mission. Here it is for those who haven't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69uT90tEJdE

[u/armored-dinnerjacket]

1:22 for the actual launch

[u/CaptainPunch374]

Merry Christmas, Space, have a telescope. No, no, it's a gift for you, we swear, we just want to use it from time to time.

[u/ryeno]

Unbelievable images as the JW detrached. So proud of this international effort! Really goes to show the power we have as humans if we work together and collaborate. What a Christmas present.