The long-awaited James Webb Space Telescope has made it. Postponed by 24 hours because of forecast high winds at the European spaceport in French Guyana, South America, close to the Equator, it launched on Christmas Day 2021 atop an Ariane 5 rocket, starting its journey 1.5 million kilometres into space.
The year’s most important space launch was a complete success. As the massive rocket lifted off, the force from its three large rocket engines accelerated the craft rapidly, breaking the sound barrier after less than a minute and reaching outer space only a few minutes later. In mission control, there was euphoria over the successful launch, which marked the beginning of a 10-year mission.
The telescope, named after former NASA administrator James Webb, is by far biggest, most powerful, and most complex space telescope ever designed, and it promises to revolutionise astronomy by allowing astronomers to peer deeper into space than ever before, to photograph and analyse unknown exoplanets, stars, and galaxies. If all goes to plan, it will be able to provide more information about the history of the universe than we can obtain from any existing equipment on – or off — Earth.
Astronomers waited 20 years
Even though the launch went well, there remained a great deal which could go wrong on the journey towards the space
