Time to fly?

Watch: Explosive animation shows how the Webb telescope will blast into space

A hint at what’s to come.

by Jennifer Walter
ESA

NASA via Giphy

After at least a half dozen delays, it’s looking more likely that the James Webb Space Telescope will actually launch in 2021.

NurPhoto/NurPhoto/Getty Images

On December 14, the ESA announced that its crews completed one of the final steps before launch: placing the folded-up telescope atop the Ariane 5 rocket that will take it to space.

Here’s the moment crews attached the telescope to its vehicle.

ESA-Manuel Pedoussaut

The next step will be to enclose Webb inside Ariane’s fairing — the upper panels on the rocket that will reduce drag and protect the telescope as it pushes through Earth’s atmosphere.

Xavier ROSSI/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images

ESA via Giphy

Ariane 5 rockets have been used to carry other important missions to space, such as the ESA’s BepiColumbo, a flyby mission to Mercury.

JODY AMIET/AFP/Getty Images

Now, mere days remain before Webb’s rocket is shuffled onto the launchpad for its projected liftoff on December 24.

Editor’s note: This slide has been updated to reflect a delay in Webb’s launch from December 22 to December 24.

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Once the rocket takes off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, it will carry the telescope about 930,000 miles away from Earth to its observation point.

JEAN-RENE DAGOIS/AFP/Getty Images

Here’s an animation that shows what the process will look like:

ESA

NASA via Giphy

Once in space, the telescope will unfurl its giant mirrors and sun shade over the span of 30 days.

As a successor to Hubble, Webb’s primary mirror will be about 6.5 meters in diameter compared to Hubble’s 2.4 meters.

GSFC/NASA

Sergei Savostyanov/TASS/Getty Images

We’ll just have to wait and see if the launch will finally happen before the end of the year.

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