Science News | Watch what happens after the James Webb Space Telescope launches | Science News @ScienceNewsMag | Uploaded October 2021 | Updated October 2024, 5 hours ago.
For the James Webb Space Telescope, getting into space is just step one. The telescope must complete a complicated series of unfolding steps before it can observe the cosmos. The entire sequence, including getting the science instruments ready, will take about six months.

“A lot has to go right, that’s for sure,” says astronomer Scott Friedman of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, who is in charge of this timeline. Webb will be heading to a point in space called L2, which is too far from Earth for astronauts to visit and make repairs. “There’s every reason to believe things will go very well,” Friedman says. “But we won’t know until we get there.”

This video depicts a timeline of what has to go right (all times are approximate). Read more:
sciencenews.org/article/james-webb-space-telescope-launch-space-science-cosmos-exoplanets

CREDITS
Story - Lisa Grossman
Production - Helen Thompson
Video - NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, SkyWorks Digital , Northrop Grumman , STScI
Music - we20fifty/Storyblocks