JWST

[Biffer]

Massive feeling of relief with a successful launch yesterday.

The biggest telescope ever launched into space, probably the most complex satellite ever made.

Some people I work with have spent thirty years working on this, and still are. Six months of commissioning activities and a whole load of other potential things going wrong to come!

[TheFrog]

[Torquemada 1420]

Mental money!

[sefton]

Incredible engineering but that is secondary to the science that could flow from this.

[Slick]

The boy and I have spent the morning catching up on this, amazing stuff

[Biffer]

Mental money!

Yes and no. $10billion dollars, but over thirty years. Works out as less than a dollar a year per person for US citizens. European contribution is less than a two euros per person total, not per year.

If you want mental money, the US military spent more money in 2021 than NASA's entire budget since it was founded.

[Insane_Homer]

[Insane_Homer]

Mental money!

Puts the UK £37 billion on Test and Trace in a year into perspective.

[Ymx]

Watched it live yesterday.

So it is to have its own orbit around the sun?

Fingers crossed the unfolding all goes as planned.

[Ymx]

[Kawazaki]

Mental money!

Yes and no. $10billion dollars, but over thirty years. Works out as less than a dollar a year per person for US citizens. European contribution is less than a two euros per person total, not per year.

If you want mental money, the US military spent more money in 2021 than NASA's entire budget since it was founded.

Has this telescope really been in development for 30 years?

I know they're very different technologies but Hubble is 31 years old.

Technology is vastly different now to what it was 10 years ago let alone 30.

Very excited to see what secrets it might reveal though. I've no idea what 'red shift' means but hopefully it holds the key!

[Kiwias]

[Sandstorm]

Mental money!

Yes and no. $10billion dollars, but over thirty years. Works out as less than a dollar a year per person for US citizens. European contribution is less than a two euros per person total, not per year.

If you want mental money, the US military spent more money in 2021 than NASA's entire budget since it was founded.

Has this telescope really been in development for 30 years?

I know they're very different technologies but Hubble is 31 years old.

Technology is vastly different now to what it was 10 years ago let alone 30.

Very excited to see what secrets it might reveal though. I've no idea what 'red shift' means but hopefully it holds the key!

[Biffer]

Mental money!

Yes and no. $10billion dollars, but over thirty years. Works out as less than a dollar a year per person for US citizens. European contribution is less than a two euros per person total, not per year.

If you want mental money, the US military spent more money in 2021 than NASA's entire budget since it was founded.

Has this telescope really been in development for 30 years?

I know they're very different technologies but Hubble is 31 years old.

Technology is vastly different now to what it was 10 years ago let alone 30.

Very excited to see what secrets it might reveal though. I've no idea what 'red shift' means but hopefully it holds the key!

Yes. Concept development for unfolding telescopes started in the late eighties and early nineties, and solidified into the Next Generation Space Telescope Concept in 96. Renamed James Webb later. Detailed design started shortily after, and construction / manufacture around 05/06. Assembly and integration started 2013 when the first of the four instruments was delivered to NASA.

That’s how long these things take. We started planning for a project called Luvoir a few years ago - that’s an even larger unfolding telescope which is likely to be at least twenty (probably nearer thirty) years from launch. We’re currently starting to build tech for LISA, a gravitational wave observatory, that’s due for launch in 2034 - that mission was being talked about in the late eighties.

[Biffer]

Red shift is the way that light changes wavelength when it comes from further away. It’s basically the Doppler effect, which I know you’ve heard, even if you’ve not known it as that. When you hear a siren on a police car, you know how it changes tone when it’s going away from you compared to when it’s coming towards you? That’s the Doppler effect. The sound waves are pushed towards you when it’s coming towards you, and stretched out when it’s moving away. So that changes the wavelength, and changes the sound. The same happens with light. Because things far away from us are moving away from us (because the universe is expanding) the light gets stretched out, so the wavelength gets longer. Red light has a longer wavelength than blue light, so it’s called red shift.

[Slick]

That’s remarkably well explained, thank you

[Ymx]

Yes and no. $10billion dollars, but over thirty years. Works out as less than a dollar a year per person for US citizens. European contribution is less than a two euros per person total, not per year.

If you want mental money, the US military spent more money in 2021 than NASA's entire budget since it was founded.

Has this telescope really been in development for 30 years?

I know they're very different technologies but Hubble is 31 years old.

Technology is vastly different now to what it was 10 years ago let alone 30.

Very excited to see what secrets it might reveal though. I've no idea what 'red shift' means but hopefully it holds the key!

Yes. Concept development for unfolding telescopes started in the late eighties and early nineties, and solidified into the Next Generation Space Telescope Concept in 96. Renamed James Webb later. Detailed design started shortily after, and construction / manufacture around 05/06. Assembly and integration started 2013 when the first of the four instruments was delivered to NASA.

That’s how long these things take. We started planning for a project called Luvoir a few years ago - that’s an even larger unfolding telescope which is likely to be at least twenty (probably nearer thirty) years from launch. We’re currently starting to build tech for LISA, a gravitational wave observatory, that’s due for launch in 2034 - that mission was being talked about in the late eighties.

But why does it take so long?

[Kawazaki]

Red shift is the way that light changes wavelength when it comes from further away. It’s basically the Doppler effect, which I know you’ve heard, even if you’ve not known it as that. When you hear a siren on a police car, you know how it changes tone when it’s going away from you compared to when it’s coming towards you? That’s the Doppler effect. The sound waves are pushed towards you when it’s coming towards you, and stretched out when it’s moving away. So that changes the wavelength, and changes the sound. The same happens with light. Because things far away from us are moving away from us (because the universe is expanding) the light gets stretched out, so the wavelength gets longer. Red light has a longer wavelength than blue light, so it’s called red shift.

Do you work for a UK engineering company?

[Biffer]

Red shift is the way that light changes wavelength when it comes from further away. It’s basically the Doppler effect, which I know you’ve heard, even if you’ve not known it as that. When you hear a siren on a police car, you know how it changes tone when it’s going away from you compared to when it’s coming towards you? That’s the Doppler effect. The sound waves are pushed towards you when it’s coming towards you, and stretched out when it’s moving away. So that changes the wavelength, and changes the sound. The same happens with light. Because things far away from us are moving away from us (because the universe is expanding) the light gets stretched out, so the wavelength gets longer. Red light has a longer wavelength than blue light, so it’s called red shift.

Do you work for a UK engineering company?

UK govt lab

[Biffer]

Has this telescope really been in development for 30 years?

I know they're very different technologies but Hubble is 31 years old.

Technology is vastly different now to what it was 10 years ago let alone 30.

Very excited to see what secrets it might reveal though. I've no idea what 'red shift' means but hopefully it holds the key!

Yes. Concept development for unfolding telescopes started in the late eighties and early nineties, and solidified into the Next Generation Space Telescope Concept in 96. Renamed James Webb later. Detailed design started shortily after, and construction / manufacture around 05/06. Assembly and integration started 2013 when the first of the four instruments was delivered to NASA.

That’s how long these things take. We started planning for a project called Luvoir a few years ago - that’s an even larger unfolding telescope which is likely to be at least twenty (probably nearer thirty) years from launch. We’re currently starting to build tech for LISA, a gravitational wave observatory, that’s due for launch in 2034 - that mission was being talked about in the late eighties.

But why does it take so long?

1. It’s really fucking difficult
2. Not enough money
3. Limited number of people with the right skill set

Those are the simple reasons. The more complex ones start with things like design work reaching a point where more people doesn’t make it go any quicker; you’re working on a single design for a particular component or subsystem so if you break it down too much, there’s even more work involved in putting it all together. Also, you need to put together the science case for the instrument - that means getting the majority of scientists in a particular discipline area to broadly agree on what you want to do. That’s like herding cats and will take years. Then you’ve got back and forwards between scientists saying ‘we want to do x’ and engineers saying ‘you can’t do that because it breaks the laws of physics / we don’t have the technology to do that / it’ll cost you the GDP of France’ to translate the science case into a set of engineering requirements. In these instruments, you’re always looking to do something that has never been done before, so there will be new technologies and techniques required - for instance nobody had unfolded a mirror in space before JWST, so you need to develop all of the actuators, hinges, mirror structures, measurement systems etc, and the manufacturing techniques associated with each of them, most of which will be bespoke. E.g. nobody has ever had to gold coat a beryllium mirror of this size, in a way what gives the required smoothness, that will survive launch and vacuum. You then have to assemble the mirror segments in a precise way (and by precise we’re talking a position accuracy down to nanometers). And you’ve got to design and manufacture all the components for that as well. And then you have to design and build the assembly process. And design and build all of the testing processes and test equipment that you use all the way through to make sure it’s going as planned.

The European instrument was delivered to NASA in 2013. It then had to be integrated to its cryo cooler, that’s several months work, then you have to test the instrument and the cryo cooler separately to ensure they still act according to design parameters after adding them together. Then you have to test that they work together the way you planned. That instrument then needed to be integrated with the other four instruments into the instrument suite, and then each of the instruments would have to go through testing to ensure they were still functioning correctly, in each of their modes, whilst each of the other instruments was operating in each of their modes. The instrument suite the needs to be attached to the rest of the telescope, and all the testing done again, plus all the tests for the telescope mechanisms and optics. Then the telescope needs to be attached to the rest of the spacecraft and all of those tests, plus all of the space craft tests, run again. And if anything doesn’t pass the tests, you need to find out why and fix it.

And that’s a very brief overview. You can see how the time adds up!

[Kawazaki]

1. It’s really fucking difficult
2. Not enough money
3. Limited number of people with the right skill set

Those are the simple reasons. The more complex ones start with things like design work reaching a point where more people doesn’t make it go any quicker; you’re working on a single design for a particular component or subsystem so if you break it down too much, there’s even more work involved in putting it all together. Also, you need to put together the science case for the instrument - that means getting the majority of scientists in a particular discipline area to broadly agree on what you want to do. That’s like herding cats and will take years. Then you’ve got back and forwards between scientists saying ‘we want to do x’ and engineers saying ‘you can’t do that because it breaks the laws of physics / we don’t have the technology to do that / it’ll cost you the GDP of France’ to translate the science case into a set of engineering requirements. In these instruments, you’re always looking to do something that has never been done before, so there will be new technologies and techniques required - for instance nobody had unfolded a mirror in space before JWST, so you need to develop all of the actuators, hinges, mirror structures, measurement systems etc, and the manufacturing techniques associated with each of them, most of which will be bespoke. E.g. nobody has ever had to gold coat a beryllium mirror of this size, in a way what gives the required smoothness, that will survive launch and vacuum. You then have to assemble the mirror segments in a precise way (and by precise we’re talking a position accuracy down to nanometers). And you’ve got to design and manufacture all the components for that as well. And then you have to design and build the assembly process. And design and build all of the testing processes and test equipment that you use all the way through to make sure it’s going as planned.

The European instrument was delivered to NASA in 2013. It then had to be integrated to its cryo cooler, that’s several months work, then you have to test the instrument and the cryo cooler separately to ensure they still act according to design parameters after adding them together. Then you have to test that they work together the way you planned. That instrument then needed to be integrated with the other four instruments into the instrument suite, and then each of the instruments would have to go through testing to ensure they were still functioning correctly, in each of their modes, whilst each of the other instruments was operating in each of their modes. The instrument suite the needs to be attached to the rest of the telescope, and all the testing done again, plus all the tests for the telescope mechanisms and optics. Then the telescope needs to be attached to the rest of the spacecraft and all of those tests, plus all of the space craft tests, run again. And if anything doesn’t pass the tests, you need to find out why and fix it.

And that’s a very brief overview. You can see how the time adds up!

That's fascinating.

I've always been interested in the story of the 'enablers' (for want of a better word) who allow the scientists to conduct their experiments. I watched the YouTube video linked earlier in this thread and I found myself looking not at the actual telescopic but the bespoke building beyond it with the ceiling crane. I was trying to imagine the complex clean room technology specs it will have been built to, the management of the air filtration, power supply and security systems etc. The chain of enablers involved is staggering. And then I guess there is a constant process whereby the engineers and builders have to hand over the buildings, cranes, winches, tools, machines, software etc to the scientists and somebody will have to tell them how to use them!

Ironically, the only thing they've used that is 'off the shelf' is the rocket to get it into orbit!

[Glaston]

Mental money!

Puts the UK £37 billion on Test and Trace in a year into perspective.

Why lie?

Total cost for first year was about 13billion.

That was for 25million or so tests done in the first 6 months

[tc27]

Interesting posts Biffer.

Being reading how many single points of failure now lie ahead in terms of the telescope deploying itself properly and staying on the right trajectory to get to L1. Fingers crossed.

[Ymx]

Very interesting.

I was wondering how you get the precision you need with this. And the precision with which bits join together. And the calibration. And the up in space calibration.

I’m guessing if extreme precision bits are created for the first time, you need to engineer the bits that make the bits.


Alternatively, why don’t you nerds just make a big 3 d printer and launch that in to space.

[Biffer]

Interesting posts Biffer.

Being reading how many single points of failure now lie ahead in terms of the telescope deploying itself properly and staying on the right trajectory to get to L1. Fingers crossed.

Yeah, it’s terrifying. Normally try to avoid them in satellite missions. Hundreds of the buggers on JWST.

[tc27]

Very interesting.

I was wondering how you get the precision you need with this. And the precision with which bits join together. And the calibration. And the up in space calibration.

I’m guessing if extreme precision bits are created for the first time, you need to engineer the bits that make the bits.


Alternatively, why don’t you nerds just make a big 3 d printer and launch that in to space.

We need to make getting into orbit cheap and routine enough that missions like this become less like multi billion dollar one shot launch and prays and more like sending weather balloons. Im optimistic Musk and possibly Bezos and other 'new space' ventures will get us their within a decade or so.

[Ymx]

Very interesting.

I was wondering how you get the precision you need with this. And the precision with which bits join together. And the calibration. And the up in space calibration.

I’m guessing if extreme precision bits are created for the first time, you need to engineer the bits that make the bits.


Alternatively, why don’t you nerds just make a big 3 d printer and launch that in to space.

We need to make getting into orbit cheap and routine enough that missions like this become less like multi billion dollar one shot launch and prays and more like sending weather balloons. Im optimistic Musk and possibly Bezos and other 'new space' ventures will get us their within a decade or so.

Actually this bad boy is not in earths orbit. It has its own one around the Sun.

[Ymx]

This is where it is

https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbL ... sWebb.html

[Biffer]

Very interesting.

I was wondering how you get the precision you need with this. And the precision with which bits join together. And the calibration. And the up in space calibration.

I’m guessing if extreme precision bits are created for the first time, you need to engineer the bits that make the bits.


Alternatively, why don’t you nerds just make a big 3 d printer and launch that in to space.

We need to make getting into orbit cheap and routine enough that missions like this become less like multi billion dollar one shot launch and prays and more like sending weather balloons. Im optimistic Musk and possibly Bezos and other 'new space' ventures will get us their within a decade or so.

Launch costs aren’t particularly a bar to this sort of mission. Less than 2% of the total cost.

[Sandstorm]

Very interesting.

I was wondering how you get the precision you need with this. And the precision with which bits join together. And the calibration. And the up in space calibration.

I’m guessing if extreme precision bits are created for the first time, you need to engineer the bits that make the bits.


Alternatively, why don’t you nerds just make a big 3 d printer and launch that in to space.

We need to make getting into orbit cheap and routine enough that missions like this become less like multi billion dollar one shot launch and prays and more like sending weather balloons. Im optimistic Musk and possibly Bezos and other 'new space' ventures will get us their within a decade or so.

Launch costs aren’t particularly a bar to this sort of mission. Less than 2% of the total cost.

30 years of labour costs do rack up.

[tc27]

Very interesting.

I was wondering how you get the precision you need with this. And the precision with which bits join together. And the calibration. And the up in space calibration.

I’m guessing if extreme precision bits are created for the first time, you need to engineer the bits that make the bits.


Alternatively, why don’t you nerds just make a big 3 d printer and launch that in to space.

We need to make getting into orbit cheap and routine enough that missions like this become less like multi billion dollar one shot launch and prays and more like sending weather balloons. Im optimistic Musk and possibly Bezos and other 'new space' ventures will get us their within a decade or so.

Launch costs aren’t particularly a bar to this sort of mission. Less than 2% of the total cost.

Its not so much cost as avoiding all the single points of failure.

The complexity of the telescope is mostly forced because the engineers have to fit it in the payload fairing and delta v capabilities of a single launch vehicle. Once you are able to build and refuel in orbit the margin become much less stringent and you can afford redundancy. You could even send a manned starship to l1 to finish the construction in place.

[Biffer]

We need to make getting into orbit cheap and routine enough that missions like this become less like multi billion dollar one shot launch and prays and more like sending weather balloons. Im optimistic Musk and possibly Bezos and other 'new space' ventures will get us their within a decade or so.

Launch costs aren’t particularly a bar to this sort of mission. Less than 2% of the total cost.

Its not so much cost as avoiding all the single points of failure.

The complexity of the telescope is mostly forced because the engineers have to fit it in the payload fairing and delta v capabilities of a single launch vehicle. Once you are able to build and refuel in orbit the margin become much less stringent and you can afford redundancy. You could even send a manned starship to l1 to finish the construction in place.

We’re a long way from on orbit assembly of this kind of mission, bu5 it’s the eventual aim. I was actually thinking about how feasible a manned or man able installation at L2 would be earlier today.

Although Astronomy is the most feasible reason to build a permanently manned moon base. There are outline proposals for Radio Astronomy from the far side and IR from craters at the poles.

[tc27]

Launch costs aren’t particularly a bar to this sort of mission. Less than 2% of the total cost.

Its not so much cost as avoiding all the single points of failure.

The complexity of the telescope is mostly forced because the engineers have to fit it in the payload fairing and delta v capabilities of a single launch vehicle. Once you are able to build and refuel in orbit the margin become much less stringent and you can afford redundancy. You could even send a manned starship to l1 to finish the construction in place.

We’re a long way from on orbit assembly of this kind of mission, bu5 it’s the eventual aim. I was actually thinking about how feasible a manned or man able installation at L2 would be earlier today.

Although Astronomy is the most feasible reason to build a permanently manned moon base. There are outline proposals for Radio Astronomy from the far side and IR from craters at the poles.

Some really exciting ideas I hope im alive long enough to see some become reality.




Although the 70s and 90s

[Sandstorm]

Word!!! Science fiction is becoming reality sooner than hoped.

[fishfoodie]

This documentary is a few years old; & it was only about an ASTRA satellite (i.e. the Sky broadcast sats), but I was intrigued by the testing.



I'd spent years in semiconductor test; & that was trying to most cost efficiently testing, for a device with a couple of billion transistors; but to do it for a few years lifecycle, on probably a couple of billion devices. Cost was always king.

This is a challenge; where money is effectively no object; but failure in the field is unacceptable; because you want the sat operating for twenty years +

[Insane_Homer]

Why lie?

Total cost for first year was about 13billion.

That was for 25million or so tests done in the first 6 months

Sorry , £37 Billion over 2 years (~$50 billion)

[Biffer]

This documentary is a few years old; & it was only about an ASTRA satellite (i.e. the Sky broadcast sats), but I was intrigued by the testing.



I'd spent years in semiconductor test; & that was trying to most cost efficiently testing, for a device with a couple of billion transistors; but to do it for a few years lifecycle, on probably a couple of billion devices. Cost was always king.

This is a challenge; where money is effectively no object; but failure in the field is unacceptable; because you want the sat operating for twenty years +

That's one of the difficulties we have sometimes talking to companies who we're trying to get to engage with the space supply chain. The switch of mind set from 'we have to suplly millions at a few Pence each' to 'were going to suplly six of them for £100k each, and our development costs will be funded' is a step some of them just can't get their heads round.

[Ymx]

Why lie?

Total cost for first year was about 13billion.

That was for 25million or so tests done in the first 6 months

Sorry , £37 Billion over 2 years (~$50 billion)

Haven’t you got another thread or two, from which to moan about this crap and post your hate propaganda ??

[Insane_Homer]

Haven’t you got another thread or two, from which to moan about this crap and post your hate propaganda ??

ok, ignore T&T then.

How about the House of Commons refurb at ~$16 billion for some perspective.

In other News:
Past the orbit of the moon yesterday,
32% distance to L2 covered.
Mid Course Correction Burn 1b - achieved.
Start of the sun shield deployment starts tomorrow.

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunc ... sWebb.html

[GogLais]

I've just read Tim Marshall's Ten Maps and he talks about possible inter-state competition for libration points.