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Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

For anyone who wants to keep track, but not actually put in the effort, Webb's port side mirror deployment was finished today. Starboard side is tomorrow.

After that, the rest of the time heading to L2 will probably be to aim the mirrors. Things are going really well.
 
Original nominal mission length was estimated at ten years. Everything went so well it could be twenty.

This really looks like a triumph. Thing's going to outlast the country.

Maybe the species.
 
Not much happening now, at least that one could actually observe. The mirrors are being aligned, and before that, they need to be pulled off of the launch positions. From the blog, the mirrors need to move about 12mm from the base position. Seems easy- half inch isn't much.

But the mirror moving system is designed for nanometers of distance. So the most a mirror could move in a day is 1mm. Grass growing. And to keep it cool, they won't move all of them 1mm every day. It's going to take the better part of a month to get the mirrors in pace.

On the cold part, the two probe locations we get to see are both at -200C. Or for a more proper reference- 73K. Still have some more to go down. The hot side is both comfortable (11C) and really hot for a human (55C).

Very interesting.

The other interesting thing is that there are still live feeds on the University of Tubes, trying to show the progress of the mirrors.... Not much is going to change.

If anyone is worried- the telescope is now going slower than the speed of sound at 20C (343m/s)- it's at 292m/s. Slowing down to stop at L2 in another 187,000 km.
 
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MichVandal said:
Not much happening now, at least that one could actually observe. The mirrors are being aligned, and before that, they need to be pulled off of the launch positions. From the blog, the mirrors need to move about 12mm from the base position. Seems easy- half inch isn't much.

But the mirror moving system is designed for nanometers of distance. So the most a mirror could move in a day is 1mm. Grass growing. And to keep it cool, they won't move all of them 1mm every day. It's going to take the better part of a month to get the mirrors in pace.

On the cold part, the two probe locations we get to see are both at -200C. Or for a more proper reference- 73K. Still have some more to go down. The hot side is both comfortable (11C) and really hot for a human (55C).

Very interesting.

The other interesting thing is that there are still live feeds on the University of Tubes, trying to show the progress of the mirrors.... Not much is going to change.

If anyone is worried- the telescope is now going slower than the speed of sound at 20C (343m/s)- it's at 292m/s. Slowing down to stop at L2 in another 187,000 km.
Click to expand...

Lol. Imagine if they overshoot the gravity "hilltop". Most painful Lucy football moment in history.
 
BLUF: Everything is okay.

Two interesting things about the mirror alignment now underway:

(1) the mirror alignment is literally at the speed grass grows. That is the degree of precision.

(2) two of the mirrors have failed to move, but this was predicted. Evidently these two mirrors are faulty and this was known at the time of launch. Apparently the mirrors are moved by two gizmos and in each of the faulty cases one of the two doesn't work. This was known during staging prior to launch. The ground crews have workarounds which allow one of the gizmos to be reprogrammed to complete the realignment.

I don't know why they didn't just fix the issue on the ground; presumably because time constraints would have scrubbed everything.

Anyway, we have professionals here who no doubt will be along with the real explanation and I have garbled it.
 
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The two faulty mirrors (A3 and A6 on the picture) are now moving and halfway to alignment.

65dkc7ui2lc81.png
 
Tracker is showing all mirrors have deployed. Now they go into the aiming process. Which should take a while- probably won't finish until it's after it's in place.
 
Today is the day that Webb inserts into L2. Very roughly ~2:15pm est. Assuming it does not slow down much form .2020 m/s- which could be the orbit velocity.

The orbit of L2 is farther from L2 than the moon is from the earth. So I'm not really sure how this is going to finish.

It's not rocket science- but harder orbital science.
 
Finished the Saturn V lego build. Holy cow is this thing an absolute marvel. It was a really fun build and the details are extraordinary.


I was disappointed with the lack of a means to dock the CSM and LM. I will probably pick up a tiny rod (or whatever they're called) to make it dock a little cleaner.

But when I got to the end and realized there was more, I was blown away. Great details to every step of the entire mission.
 
dxmnkd316 said:
Finished the Saturn V lego build. Holy cow is this thing an absolute marvel. It was a really fun build and the details are extraordinary.


I was disappointed with the lack of a means to dock the CSM and LM. I will probably pick up a tiny rod (or whatever they're called) to make it dock a little cleaner.

But when I got to the end and realized there was more, I was blown away. Great details to every step of the entire mission.
Click to expand...

I have the Saturn V and the Lunar Lander sets. Saturn V was my favorite to build. The techniques that the designers use to get the right angles now just amazes me. Way more advanced than I used to build.

I really want the Shuttle Discovery set, but not sure where to display it. And the ISS set, while cool, just doesn't quite fit my collection.
 
I also have the lunar lander and ISS :-)

I was looking at the shuttle as well. It's a hard one for me. I'd love to get it but basically dropped the hint for my wife as a Christmas 2022 gift

I also have the original shuttle set they released decades ago. Need to go dig that out of my dad's basement.
 
dxmnkd316 said:
I also have the lunar lander and ISS :-)

I was looking at the shuttle as well. It's a hard one for me. I'd love to get it but basically dropped the hint for my wife as a Christmas 2022 gift

I also have the original shuttle set they released decades ago. Need to go dig that out of my dad's basement.
Click to expand...

Wait, wait, which one:
https://brickset.com/sets/8480-1/Space-Shuttle
https://brickset.com/sets/1682-1/Space-Shuttle-Launch
https://brickset.com/sets/6346-1/Shuttle-Launching-Crew
https://brickset.com/sets/6339-1/Shuttle-Launch-Pad
https://brickset.com/sets/7470-1/Spa...scovery-STS-31

I have these:
https://brickset.com/sets/31066-1/Sp...uttle-Explorer
https://brickset.com/sets/6544-1/Shuttle-Transcon-2

For those following along at home, this is the current shuttle model that follows the modern creator design:
https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/n...iscovery-10283


*edit* I've noticed that ever since the Lego designers became our age, they've taken a lot of the classic sets we all grew up with in the '80s and '90s and modernized them. So many City, Creator, and Creator Expert sets can be traced back to sets we grew up with.
 
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aparch said:
Wait, wait, which one:
https://brickset.com/sets/8480-1/Space-Shuttle
https://brickset.com/sets/1682-1/Space-Shuttle-Launch
https://brickset.com/sets/6346-1/Shuttle-Launching-Crew
https://brickset.com/sets/6339-1/Shuttle-Launch-Pad
https://brickset.com/sets/7470-1/Spa...scovery-STS-31

I have these:
https://brickset.com/sets/31066-1/Sp...uttle-Explorer
https://brickset.com/sets/6544-1/Shuttle-Transcon-2

For those following along at home, this is the current shuttle model that follows the modern creator design:
https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/n...iscovery-10283


*edit* I've noticed that ever since the Lego designers became our age, they've taken a lot of the classic sets we all grew up with in the '80s and '90s and modernized them. So many City, Creator, and Creator Expert sets can be traced back to sets we grew up with.
Click to expand...

I'm 90% sure it's 1682
 
About 6 months until Webb is cold enough to do science. Primary mirror is currently -347 F but the instruments are still a blazing -332 F. (Sunshield is +127 F.) Operating temperature is -387 F.
 
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