JWST - James Webb Space Telescope
Replacing The Hubble In 2010

The James Webb Space Telescope — formerly known as NASA's Next Generation Space Telescope — is named for the space agency's second administrator, remembered for his leadership of lunar exploration programs and the the Apollo missions that landed the first humans on the Moon.

James E. Webb also initiated an energetic space science program with more than 75 launches, including America's first interplanetary explorers.

Launch in 2010. The telescope satellite is scheduled for launch in 2010 aboard a single-use rocket. In space, it will take the satellite about three months to reach an orbit 940,000 miles out in space. At that location, known as the second Lagrange Point or L2, the spacecraft will be balanced between the gravity of the Sun and the gravity of Earth.

At the L2 point, a Sun shield on only one side of the satellite will be sufficient to protect the telescope from the light and heat of both the Sun and Earth.

That means the telescope can be cooled to very low temperatures without complicated refrigeration equipment. Low temperatures are required to prevent its own heat radiation from exceeding the brightness of the distant cool astronomical objects.

Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, the Webb Telescope will be too far away from earth for service visits by space shuttle astronauts who usually fly only around 250 miles above Earth.

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