World’s most powerful telescope blasts off into space
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a revolutionary instrument built to peer the farthest yet into the cosmos, was launched by rocket yesterday from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 7:20 a.m. EST (1220 GMT).
The powerful $9 billion infrared telescope, hailed by NASA as the premiere space-science observatory of the next decade, was carried aloft inside the cargo bay of an Ariane 5 rocket. Just 12.5 hours later, the spacecraft began a vital manoeuvre on its month-long journey to its future outpost as the observatory executed a 65-minute-long thruster burn that concluded at 8:55 p.m. EST (0155 GMT).
In the latest updates, the spacecraft covered the first 10% of that journey within 12 hours of launching. Then, when the telescope was about 100,000 miles (160,000 km) away from Earth, the observatory executed a crucial burn to ensure it would safely reach its destination.
