'Welcome Home': NASA James Webb Space Telescope Reaches Final Destination, 1 Million Miles From Earth

The second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2, Webb's final destination, is located nearly one million miles away from Earth.

The NASA James Webb Space Telescope has arrived at its final destination, the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point or L2. (Photo: Twitter/@NASAWebb)

New Delhi: The NASA James Webb Telescope (JWST), the most powerful space observatory ever built, has arrived at its final destination, almost a month after the much-awaited launch. 

The JWST, or Webb, fired its onboard thrusters for nearly five minutes, on January 24, at 2 pm EST (January 25, at 12:30 am IST), to complete the final post-launch course correction to Webb's trajectory, NASA said on its website.

As a result of the mid-course correction burn, The $10 billion space observatory was inserted towards its final orbit around the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2. 

🏠 Home, home on Lagrange! We successfully completed our burn to start #NASAWebb on its orbit of the 2nd Lagrange point (L2), about a million miles (1.5 million km) from Earth. It will orbit the Sun, in line with Earth, as it orbits L2. https://t.co/bsIU3vccAj #UnfoldTheUniverse pic.twitter.com/WDhuANEP5h

— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) January 24, 2022

This is Webb's final destination, and is located nearly 1 million miles, or 16,09,344 kilometres away from Earth.

In order to send Webb to its preferred "halo" orbit around the L2 point, an addition of about 3.6 miles per hour, or 1.6 metres per second to Webb's speed was needed. The final mid-course burn added the 'mere walking pace' to Webb's speed, according to NASA.

"Webb, welcome home!", NASA Administrator Bill Nelson was quoted as saying in a NASA statement. 

He congratulated the team for all of their hard work ensuring Webb's safe arrival at L2. He said that we are one step closer to uncovering the mysteries of the universe.

Webb is likely to send its first images of the universe this summer.

Why Was L2 Chosen As Webb's Home?

Webb can get a wide view of the cosmos at any given moment, because of its orbit.

Also, the orbit provides the opportunity for Webb's telescope optics and scientific instruments to get cold enough to function and perform optimal science, according to NASA.

During its voyage to L2, Webb used as little as propellant as possible for course corrections. The reason behind this was to leave as much remaining propellant as possible for Webb's ordinary operations over its lifetime. These operations include station-keeping (small adjustments to keep Webb in its desired orbit) and momentum unloading to counteract the effects of solar radiation pressure on the huge sunshield.

Bill Ochs, Webb project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said that JWST has achieved amazing success during the past month, and is a tribute to all the folks who spent many years and even decades to ensure mission success, according to the statement.

Next, Webb will align the mirrors, activate and commision the instruments, and begin wondrous and astonishing discoveries.

Engineers will commence the sophisticated three-month long process of aligning Webb's optics to nearly nanometre precision, because the telescope's primary mirror segments and secondary mirror have been deployed from their launch positions.

At L2, Webb's sunshield will protect it from light from the Sun, Earth, and Moon that could interfere with observations of infrared light.

The JWST is a powerful time machine with infrared vision that will look back in time, more than 13.5 billion years, to see the first stars and galaxies forming out of the darkness of the early universe.

The space observatory will use infrared light to observe celestial objects with much higher resolution than ever before, and to study our own solar system as well as distant worlds.