Washington: The James Webb Space Telescope has successfully completed a mid-course correction burn on its way to the final destination: the observing spot, located one million miles away from our home planet, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) informs.
“Success! #NASAWebb’s first mid-course correction burn helped fine-tune Webb’s trajectory toward its orbit around the second Lagrange point [L2], a million miles (1.5 million km) from Earth,” NASA said on Twitter.
NASA explained that Webb will orbit the Sun in line with Earth so its sunshield can protect the telescope from light and heat.
The Ariane 5 rocket carrying the cutting-edge James Webb telescope took off on Saturday from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. The largest and most powerful space telescope ever launched, Webb will replace the famous Hubble telescope. It will take Webb about one month to reach L2 and it is expected to start taking images of the universe in about six months.
US President Joe Biden has congratulated everyone who has worked on the James Webb Space Telescope with its successful launch.
The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, has also offered its congratulations, hoping for success in the telescope’s journey to the L2 destination point.
