Why NASA Is Trying to Dodge the Moon
The biggest, most powerful space telescope in history is currently sitting on top of a rocket in French Guiana, on the northeastern coast of South America, awaiting its blazing departure from this planet. The James Webb Space Telescope is designed to point its 18 gold-coated mirrors into the darkness and reveal hidden wonders in the universe. But its last few months on Earth have been a little stressful.
The Webb telescope at its launch site in October unscathed after a days-long journey . But then a hardware malfunction during launch prep and shook the entire observatory, sparking fears that something inside might have been damaged. Technicians checked out Webb and eventually deemed it fine, so on top of its rocket. But a communications issue between the observatory and the rocket, which have to talk to each other in order to reach space. It’s as if the entire astronomy community has piled into a car, and their driver, a $10 billion space telescope, keeps alternating between pressing the gas and hitting the brakes, determined to lurch all the way to their final destination.
