Explained: JWST's origin story, mission goals, and spacecraft design.

The James Webb Space Telescope was dominating the headlines this week, so I decided to write about its origin story, the questions it will help us answer, and the design + engineering of the spacecraft. I wrote a high-level summary below, but I recommend reading the full piece I wrote about it here: https://year2049.substack.com/p/-the-james-webb-space-telescope

🌌 Origin story

In 1989, a few months before Hubble’s launch, scientists gathered for a workshop to discuss its successor, nicknamed the “Next Generation Telescope”. They agreed that it had to observe the universe in infrared light for two reasons:

• Observing the early stars and galaxies located billions of lightyears away because their light has been redshifted
• Looking behind clouds of dust that block visible light

🎯 Mission Goals

1. Studying the early universe

2. Studying galaxies and their evolution over time

3. Observing how stars and planetary systems form

4. Observing other planets and measuring their chemical and physical properties

🔭 Spacecraft

Three main components to know about:

1. Mirrors: A triple-mirror system that reflects infrared and can be programmed to point in different directions

2. Science Instruments: 4 instruments that offer a mix of imaging and spectrography capabilities for near-infrared and mid-infrared ranges

3. Sunshield: 5 kite-shaped and tennis court-sized layers that keep JWST shielded from the Sun and Earth's heat because it needs to capture heat signatures of objects that are extremely far away.

Read more 👇

What I wrote is just high-level overview, but I highly recommend reading the full piece I wrote (7 mins reading time) about JWST: https://year2049.substack.com/p/-the-james-webb-space-telescope