![]() It means, however, that a repair is all but impossible. The result is a stable gravitational region, around which the James Webb - and other telescopes - can orbit. A special point lies there, a Lagrange point, a place where the gravity of the Sun and Earth perfectly balance against the orbital acceleration of a spacecraft. Partly that is because the James Webb will fly incredibly far from Earth: hovering roughly one million miles away. The James Webb promises to be a one shot opportunity: a chance to reshape our view of the cosmos or a failure of historic magnitude. Should anything go wrong, should any hidden flaw appear after launch, then NASA and astronomers will face certain embarrassment and disappointment. Unlike Hubble, however, the James Webb cannot be fixed. Though it cannot fully match the power of Hubble - it is focused on a different kind of light - in terms of technological innovation and ability to spy cosmic secrets the new telescope is a more than worthy successor. Its replacement - in a sense - is the James Webb Space Telescope. Onboard control systems will inevitably fail, and without the space shuttle to boost its altitude, the irresistible grasp of gravity will slowly pull it back to Earth. Far from being trashed, Hubble is today celebrated around the world recognised as a wonder of the twenty-first century.Īnd yet, sometime over the next decade - unless it can be repaired once more - it will cease functioning. Ever since the telescope has worked almost without fault, sending back a steady stream of stunning photographs. Four years after that disastrous first attempt a team of astronauts visited and repaired Hubble. Many thought Hubble would never recover that even if engineers could cobble together a repair, its reputation was irretrievably trashed.įortunately NASA did find a fix. It was an embarrassing mistake for NASA, who were suddenly left with a billion dollar telescope that could barely see. The mirror, praised for its precision, turned out to be fractionally too flat, an error that prevented it from focusing properly. Instead of the crystal sharp visions of far away stars scientists had expected, they saw only blurred lights, as though the telescope was peering through a thick fog. Problems cropped up with communications links, with control systems, with temperature fluctuations as the telescope repeatedly crossed between night and day.Īll those issues paled in significance, however, compared to the flawed images the telescope was producing. Hubble struggled through its first months in orbit. It was, everyone agreed, a technological marvel.Īnd yet, soon after reaching orbit, things stated to go wrong. Polishing it took years, relying on the latest in computer technology to achieve the necessary accuracy. It would do all this with the most finely ground mirror ever produced its surface milled to within nanometers of perfection. It promised to give an unprecedented view of the universe, to reveal for the first time details of distant stars and galaxies, to unlock secrets of profound cosmic significance. In 1990, after years of delays, millions of dollars and decades of planning, Hubble was finally ready for launch. ![]()
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