The James Webb Space Telescope and stuff

[magnemoe]

10 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Yeah, that one comes to mind. Almost as bad as...

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fgt

 

Say the satellite is worse, an bomb will not explode if you drop it an meter. Unless its armed its unlikely to explode even if dropped by an plane. 

[cubinator]

Beauty.

Edited October 28, 2021 by cubinator

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

29 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Beauty.

Really is. 

[StrandedonEarth]

That's some crazy packaging...

[SuperFastJellyfish]

Cool video, but they are really driving home the possibility of a failure.  I can't wait to see what it can see:

 

 

[Spaceception]

This feels like a dumb question, but where can you find the field of view for James Webb? I assume it can rotate 'easily' enough to have 360 visibility along its "North/South" of the ecliptic, but because it needs the sunshade, it would be unable to do many observations along the ecliptic, right?

Edited October 29, 2021 by Spaceception

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

14 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

This feels like a dumb question, but where can you find the field of view for James Webb? I assume it can rotate 'easily' enough to have 360 visibility along its "North/South" of the ecliptic, but because it needs the sunshade, it would be unable to do many observations along the ecliptic, right?

My understanding is that it's going to have 'seasons' where parts of the sky are not available for viewing. But over a year it should be able to cover everything 

 

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, Spaceception said:

This feels like a dumb question, but where can you find the field of view for James Webb? I assume it can rotate 'easily' enough to have 360 visibility along its "North/South" of the ecliptic, but because it needs the sunshade, it would be unable to do many observations along the ecliptic, right?

JW is infrared, the the ecliptic is polluted with zodiacal dust. So observations along the ecliptic won’t be as “clear” as other observations in other directions, but I don’t know how great an effect it will be

[AHHans]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

My understanding is that it's going to have 'seasons' where parts of the sky are not available for viewing. But over a year it should be able to cover everything

That! (Although I don't know if they'll call it seasons.)

That's actually like every other scientific telescope is operated: for any given time there is "only" a certain region of the sky that can be observed, so you'll have to plan your observations around that. So astronomers are used to either choosing the targets that for the time of year, or applying for the time of year that fits their target. Bigger telescopes also have dedicated tools for planning observations which not only handle the "which target can be observed when" but also all the other settings for the telescope.

Entering a target position into the telescope control software and then watching in panic as the telescopes swings across the sun and leaves a path of destruction on the instruments in the focus is not supposed to happen...

Spoiler

P.S. No I don't personally know of any actual incidents of molten receivers, but I'm sure that it has happened somewhere sometime.
P.P.S. It is something that we had in the back of our minds when doing observations though.
P.P.P.S. If you got this far: Yes! Most radio telescopes do observe during daytime. And some are built that they can focus sunlight to dangerous levels.

 

[cubinator]

solar system scale interferometry when

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, cubinator said:

solar system scale interferometry when

Probably around the same time metals are being extracted from asteroids, give or take a few decades….

[benzman]

15 hours ago, SuperFastJellyfish said:

Cool video, but they are really driving home the possibility of a failure.  I can't wait to see what it can see:

 

 

Watching that video gives me a feeling of unease.

[Minmus Taster]

LMFAO

[tater]

 

 

[Spaceception]

January is going to be a stressful month.

[Admiral Fluffy]

I am going to get up at 5 am and watch the launch.

The launch vehicle has a track record of 5 failures out of 111 launches, with 3 of those being partial failures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5#Launch_statistics

[magnemoe]

On 11/6/2021 at 9:49 PM, Admiral Fluffy said:

I am going to get up at 5 am and watch the launch.

The launch vehicle has a track record of 5 failures out of 111 launches, with 3 of those being partial failures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5#Launch_statistics

More scared of the deployment than the launch. Most of the fails was with the first launches. 

[tater]

 

 

[Shpaget]

T-30 days LET'S GO!!

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

DD-ERS (stsci.edu)

[tater]

 

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

 

 

[Codraroll]

So many ways to take this from here:

NASA approach: "A clamp opened unexpectedly, so we delay the whole thing for twenty months or so to re-evaluate the design of the telescope, question the life choices of all our junior engineers, and allow Congress to re-consider whether it should be a telescope at all, and not, perhaps, a lunar test bed for rover wheels."

SpaceX approach: "Well, the clamp thing did end up destroying the spacecraft, but we have nine more like it ready to launch by next Tuesday, and the wicked cool footage of the explosion is giving us a lot of subscribers on YouTube."

Roscosmos approach: "Clamp is same as on Sputnik. In fact, whole rocket is same as on Sputnik. Telescope is slightly altered Sputnik, with camera tied on using string. Two years from now, we will make nuclear telescope and send to Saturn."

BlueOrigin approach: "One day, we too will have clamps. And SpaceX's clamps are bad."

CNSA approach: "There was no clamp failure. Everything worked perfectly. But just in case, the search terms 'clamp', 'rocket', 'telescope', and 'crash' are now censored on all search engines."

ESA approach: "Clamps? We should form a committee to consider whether to use clamps in our next design. Pinces ? Nous devrions former un comité pour examiner s'il faut utiliser des pinces dans notre prochaine conception. Abrazaderas? Deberíamos formar un comité para considerar si usamos abrazaderas en nuestro próximo diseño. Expect results in 10 to 15 years. Attendez-vous à des résultats dans 10 à 15 ans. Espere resultados en 10 a 15 años. "

ULA approach: "Unforeseen circumstances have led to unexpected delays in the spacecraft integration process. An extra cash injection of $5.5 billion is necessary to uphold the schedule of the project and retain America's capability to integrate mission critical components."

ISRO approach: "These clamps didn't work, so we went to the hardware store and picked up new ones. It pushed up the cost of the mission slightly, but it's still cheaper than the Clamps movie Hollywood is going to make about this situation. By that we don't mean cheaper than the film production, but cheaper than the collector's edition DVD set."

[Minmus Taster]

3 hours ago, tater said:

 

 

I swear to Jeb I can't keep doing this-

15 minutes ago, Codraroll said:

NASA approach: "A clamp opened unexpectedly, so we delay the whole thing for twenty months or so to re-evaluate the design of the telescope, question the life choices of all our junior engineers, and allow Congress to re-consider whether it should be a telescope at all, and not, perhaps, a lunar test bed for rover wheels."

NASA...please don't make me go through this again XD  

[SunlitZelkova]

20 minutes ago, Codraroll said:

So many ways to take this from here:

NASA approach: "A clamp opened unexpectedly, so we delay the whole thing for twenty months or so to re-evaluate the design of the telescope, question the life choices of all our junior engineers, and allow Congress to re-consider whether it should be a telescope at all, and not, perhaps, a lunar test bed for rover wheels."

SpaceX approach: "Well, the clamp thing did end up destroying the spacecraft, but we have nine more like it ready to launch by next Tuesday, and the wicked cool footage of the explosion is giving us a lot of subscribers on YouTube."

Roscosmos approach: "Clamp is same as on Sputnik. In fact, whole rocket is same as on Sputnik. Telescope is slightly altered Sputnik, with camera tied on using string. Two years from now, we will make nuclear telescope and send to Saturn."

BlueOrigin approach: "One day, we too will have clamps. And SpaceX's clamps are bad."

CNSA approach: "There was no clamp failure. Everything worked perfectly. But just in case, the search terms 'clamp', 'rocket', 'telescope', and 'crash' are now censored on all search engines."

ESA approach: "Clamps? We should form a committee to consider whether to use clamps in our next design. Pinces ? Nous devrions former un comité pour examiner s'il faut utiliser des pinces dans notre prochaine conception. Abrazaderas? Deberíamos formar un comité para considerar si usamos abrazaderas en nuestro próximo diseño. Expect results in 10 to 15 years. Attendez-vous à des résultats dans 10 à 15 ans. Espere resultados en 10 a 15 años. "

ULA approach: "Unforeseen circumstances have led to unexpected delays in the spacecraft integration process. An extra cash injection of $5.5 billion is necessary to uphold the schedule of the project and retain America's capability to integrate mission critical components."

ISRO approach: "These clamps didn't work, so we went to the hardware store and picked up new ones. It pushed up the cost of the mission slightly, but it's still cheaper than the Clamps movie Hollywood is going to make about this situation. By that we don't mean cheaper than the film production, but cheaper than the collector's edition DVD set."

I find it funny how JAXA/ISAS is excluded from this. Are they just too normal of a space program to make fun of? I can't recall anything particularly crazy they have done, apart from decent portions of their budget being partially related to maintaining potential ballistic missile technology (there is a reason JAXA still operates solid fuel launch vehicles when the H series are just fine, along with sample return missions (the re-entry capsules of which are dual use in relation to missile RVs) getting funded).

JAXA approach: These clamps failed. Let's do our best to replace them with the money we have.

*followed by*

Japanese conservative politician approach: Those clamps are vital to potential indigenous ballistic missile technology. Have 10 million yen to replace them!

9 minutes ago, Minmus Taster said:

I swear to Jeb I can't keep doing this-

I have a really, really bad feeling about all of this. When I heard the news about the clamps for the first time, I was listening to a disco playlist on YouTube. The song that started playing, as I read the tweet, had the lyrics "burn baby, burn". I am not kidding