James Webb space telescope; Risky venture?

This thing is going to inaccesable for the Shuttle
or whatever other spacecraft will exist when it's
put into far Earth orbit. If something goes wrong, or
it needs maintenance, they are out of luck.
Lets hope when it launches, it's perfect and stays pefect!

from space.com;

Unlike Hubble's close-in, Earth-orbiting address, JWST's working
location is 940,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) out in space -
stationed at what's called the Lagrange Point 2, or L2 for short. It
is in this locale where the spacecraft is fully deployed, fully ready
for action, and balanced between the gravity of the Sun and the Earth.
That balance of gravitational pull at the L2 point means that JWST
will keep up with the Earth as it goes around the Sun.

RichA wrote:
This thing is going to inaccesable for the Shuttle
or whatever other spacecraft will exist when it's
put into far Earth orbit. If something goes wrong, or
it needs maintenance, they are out of luck.
Lets hope when it launches, it's perfect and stays pefect!

from space.com;

Unlike Hubble's close-in, Earth-orbiting address, JWST's working
location is 940,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) out in space -
stationed at what's called the Lagrange Point 2, or L2 for short. It
is in this locale where the spacecraft is fully deployed, fully ready
for action, and balanced between the gravity of the Sun and the Earth.
That balance of gravitational pull at the L2 point means that JWST
will keep up with the Earth as it goes around the Sun.

Good visuals: http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/phys...ngePoints.html
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/langrange.html

"RichA" wrote in message
...
This thing is going to inaccesable for the Shuttle
or whatever other spacecraft will exist when it's
put into far Earth orbit. If something goes wrong, or
it needs maintenance, they are out of luck.
Lets hope when it launches, it's perfect and stays pefect!

from space.com;

Unlike Hubble's close-in, Earth-orbiting address, JWST's working
location is 940,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) out in space -
stationed at what's called the Lagrange Point 2, or L2 for short. It
is in this locale where the spacecraft is fully deployed, fully ready
for action, and balanced between the gravity of the Sun and the Earth.
That balance of gravitational pull at the L2 point means that JWST
will keep up with the Earth as it goes around the Sun.


I wouldn't worry about it. The chances that it will go up within our
lifetime, is just about zero!

Steve

RichA wrote:
This thing is going to inaccesable for the Shuttle
or whatever other spacecraft will exist when it's
put into far Earth orbit. If something goes wrong, or
it needs maintenance, they are out of luck.
Lets hope when it launches, it's perfect and stays pefect!

Well, IUE, ISO, Chandra, XMM-Newton, WMAP, and Spitzer have done OK
beyond LEO... and as an IR-optimized mission, not being in LEO
has tremendous operational advantages for JWST.

Bill Keel

With so much money going elsewhere these days, I think you can forget about
this scope for the next umpteen years.

Clay

"RichA" wrote in message
...
This thing is going to inaccesable for the Shuttle
or whatever other spacecraft will exist when it's
put into far Earth orbit. If something goes wrong, or
it needs maintenance, they are out of luck.
Lets hope when it launches, it's perfect and stays pefect!

from space.com;

Unlike Hubble's close-in, Earth-orbiting address, JWST's working
location is 940,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) out in space -
stationed at what's called the Lagrange Point 2, or L2 for short. It
is in this locale where the spacecraft is fully deployed, fully ready
for action, and balanced between the gravity of the Sun and the Earth.
That balance of gravitational pull at the L2 point means that JWST
will keep up with the Earth as it goes around the Sun.