ICYMI: Super Stellar Friday and Space Telescopes

We got a wonderful introduction to the legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope and potential of the James Webb Space Telescope on Friday. If you didn’t have the chance to join NASA Solar System Ambassador Sally Jensen for her talk, no worries- you can find the recording of her presentation here.

If you are looking for more information on the Webb Telescope, Sally took the time to answer a few final questions:

1. What was the cost of the James Webb Telescope?

The cost of the JWST is nearly 10 billion. It is nearly doubled since 2009.

2. How much data will the James Webb Telescope be capable of processing & where will the data be transmitted?

The JWST will download data to Earth will be every 12 hours, with the “downlink” lasting about 4 hours. The JWST uses a Solid-State Recorder (SSR) for the downlink which is capable of storing 65 GB. The regular scheduled downlinks will not fill the SSR.

Additional information below from Dr. Christopher Britt of the Space Telescope Science Institute:

The data goes to two places, at least. First, it is stored here at the Space Telescope Science Institute at the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) which is also where the data for Hubble is stored along with several other missions. Second, the data is sent to the scientist that requested the observation, who applies any special calibrations required for the science program that aren’t handled by the data pipeline and analyzes it. Once they have analyzed the data, they write a scientific paper about it to tell others what they learned from the observations.

3. Who is in charge of the James Webb Telescope?

The NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland is in charge of the JWST and the project scientist is John C. Mather.

Additional information below from Dr. Christopher Britt of the Space Telescope Science Institute:

Yes, Goddard is heavily involved in JWST - some of the early construction happened there and much of the mission’s management as well. The flight operations are out of STScI, though, which is both the Mission Operations Center (MOC) and the Science Operations Center (SOC). We are also the SOC for Hubble, and have operated the scheduling, time allocations, instruments, and data archives for Hubble since the beginning! There is a backup control room for Webb at Goddard, in case something happens to the one at STScI.

The flight communications with JWST are handled through the Deep Space Network, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA using radio dishes all over the world. That way, some part of Earth is always in contact with JWST, even when the telescope itself is below the horizon in Maryland.