Launched on Christmas day, the $10 billion space telescope is now halfway to its destination some 1 million miles from Earth.
than expected, so controllers were given a day off on January 1 to rest. Tightening of the sunshield was then scheduled for January 2, but NASA insteadto resolve a pair of minor issues.
Specifically, the team had to rebalance Webb’s solar array to draw more power and re-orient the spacecraft to reduce the amount of sunlight hitting the motors used for tensioning,The delay also provided an opportunity for the team to study how Webb is behaving in its new space environment. “Nothing we can learn from simulations on the ground is as good as analyzing the observatory when it’s up and running,” Ochspost on January 2.
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