Future Timeline

NASA delays James Webb Space Telescope launch to December 22nd

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope was transferred to the final assembly building at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana to meet its Ariane 5 launch vehicle.

Webb will be the largest, most powerful telescope ever launched into space. As part of an international collaboration agreement, ESA (the European Space Agency) is providing the telescope’s launch service. Working with partners, ESA was responsible for the development and qualification of Ariane 5 adaptations for the Webb mission.

Webb is an international partnership between NASA, ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Stowed inside a special transport container and mobile clean room, Webb’s vitals were meticulously monitored throughout the entire process of moving between buildings.

The Ariane 5 rocket Webb will ride to space was moved to the same building on Nov. 29. Here, adjustable platforms allow engineers to access the launch vehicle and its payload.

NASA is shooting for next Friday—Christmas Eve—to launch its newest space telescope.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson confirmed Friday that the James Webb Space Telescope will attempt to blast off on Dec. 24. A European Ariane rocket will provide the lift from South America's French Guiana.

The $10 billion Webb—considered the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope—was supposed to soar Saturday, but was jolted by a clamp during launch preparations, resulting in a four-day delay. Then a bad communication link on the rocket had to be fixed, postponing the launch another two days.

U.S. and European space officials signed off Friday on the launch date, following one last round of testing.

Nelson expects a smaller crowd at the launch site because of the holidays. Liftoff is scheduled for 7:20 a.m. EST.

(CNN) It's a moment that has been decades in the making. The James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's premier space observatory of the next decade, successfully launched on Christmas morning.

The telescope lifted off atop an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana at 7:20 a.m. ET.

"We have LIFTOFF of the @NASAWebb Space Telescope!" NASA shared on Twitter. "At 7:20am ET (12:20 UTC), the beginning of a new, exciting decade of science climbed to the sky. Webb's mission to #UnfoldTheUniverse will change our understanding of space as we know it."

NASA's new James Webb Space Telescope successfully deployed a critical antenna Sunday (Dec. 26) just one day after its Christmas launch into space.

The space telescope unfolded what scientists call a gimbaled antenna assembly that carries the high-rate data dish responsible for beaming Webb's observations of the early universe back to Earth. Webb launched into space Saturday atop an Ariane 5 rocket that lifted off from a spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

"This antenna will be used to send at least 28.6 Gbytes of science data down from the observatory, twice a day," NASA officials wrote in a mission update. "The team has now released and tested the motion of the antenna assembly — the entire process took about one hour."

After a detailed analysis of where the James Webb Space Telescope is now (29 December 2021) and how it got there, NASA determined the observatory should have enough propellant to operate in space for significantly more than 10 years in space.

Webb's mission lifetime was designed to be at least 5-1/2 years, and mission engineers and scientists were hoping for closer to 10 years.

The "significantly more than 10 years" announced this week comes from two factors: the precision of the Ariane 5 launch on December 25, which experts say exceeded the requirements needed to put Webb on the right path.

And now, because of how precise JWST's trajectory has been, the first two mid-course correction maneuvers took significantly less fuel than expected.