The French President stressed that he was filled with a sense of pride
PARIS, December 25. /tass/. French President Emmanuel Macron said that the launch of the James Webb orbital telescope into space will forever remain one of the key events in the history of space exploration.
"This December 25 will forever remain in the history of space exploration. Bravo to our teams [of specialists] and especially to our French and European teams," Macron wrote on Twitter on Saturday.
He stressed that he was filled with a sense of pride. "Go ahead, Webb," Macron added.
On Saturday, the Ariane 5 launch vehicle, launched from the Kourou cosmodrome in French Guiana, put the telescope into orbit. After that, James Webb will move to its destination in the second Lagrange point for four weeks, the European Space Agency (ESA) informed earlier. This point is four times farther from the Earth than the Moon, at a distance of 1.5 million km on the opposite side from the Sun.
James Webb is a joint project of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). According to the American Internet portal SpaceNews, NASA has invested $ 8.8 billion in the project, ESA - 815 million, including the cost of the rocket and launch, KKA - 165 million.
The telescope, named after James Webb, the head of the Apollo program, which allowed a man to visit the Moon, is to replace the Hubble Observatory in orbit. Initially, it was assumed that this would happen in 2013, but the design work was far behind schedule. Only in November 2016, the assembly of the main segments of James Webb was completed and it was announced that specialists were now starting their ground tests. As the assistant director of NASA Thomas Zurbuken admitted, the creators of the telescope "underestimated the technological complexity" of the project.
The observatory has a mirror with a diameter of 6.5 m - the largest ever put into orbit. James Webb will study the oldest stars and galaxies in the universe that formed after the Big Bang, as well as search for potentially habitable planets. The estimated life of its operation is 10 years.
