B Question re Webb telescope at L2

  • B
  • Thread starter Thread starter Buzz Bloom
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    L2 Telescope
AI Thread Summary
The James Webb Space Telescope will operate in a halo orbit around the L2 point, which is an unstable equilibrium. This orbit will have a radius of approximately 800,000 km and take about six months to complete. Since L2 lacks gravitational pull, the telescope will drift and requires station-keeping maneuvers to maintain its position, consuming about 2–4 m/s of its total propulsion budget. The observatory is equipped with two sets of thrusters to manage this propulsion. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for the telescope's operational success.
Buzz Bloom
Gold Member
Messages
2,517
Reaction score
465
TL;DR Summary
The article https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/about/orbit.html describes the planned placing the Webb telescope in orbit near the L2 Lagrange point of the Earth-Sun system. But L2 is gravitationally unstable.
The diagram in the article seems to say that the Webb will orbit around the unstable L2 point. At any distance near L2 but not exactly at L2 the Webb will tend to move further from L2, unless Webb has an engine and fuel to maintain it in the special orbit. I was not able to find any description of such an engine, so I am asking the Physics Forums participants what they might know about this.
 
Astronomy news on Phys.org

The telescope will circle about the L2 point in a halo orbit, which will be inclined with respect to the ecliptic, have a radius of approximately 800,000 km (500,000 mi), and take about half a year to complete.[30] Since L2 is just an equilibrium point with no gravitational pull, a halo orbit is not an orbit in the usual sense: the spacecraft is actually in orbit around the Sun, and the halo orbit can be thought of as controlled drifting to remain in the vicinity of the L2 point.[146] This requires some station-keeping: around 2–4 m/s per year[147] from the total budget of 150 m/s.[148] Two sets of thrusters constitute the observatory's propulsion system.[
 
  • Like
  • Informative
Likes hutchphd, pinball1970 and Buzz Bloom
3I/ATLAS, also known as C/2025 N1 (ATLAS) and formerly designated as A11pl3Z, is an iinterstellar comet. It was discovered by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) station at Río Hurtado, Chile on 1 July 2025. Note: it was mentioned (as A11pl3Z) by DaveE in a new member's introductory thread. https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/brian-cox-lead-me-here.1081670/post-7274146 https://earthsky.org/space/new-interstellar-object-candidate-heading-toward-the-sun-a11pl3z/ One...
Is a homemade radio telescope realistic? There seems to be a confluence of multiple technologies that makes the situation better than when I was a wee lad: software-defined radio (SDR), the easy availability of satellite dishes, surveillance drives, and fast CPUs. Let's take a step back - it is trivial to see the sun in radio. An old analog TV, a set of "rabbit ears" antenna, and you're good to go. Point the antenna at the sun (i.e. the ears are perpendicular to it) and there is...
Back
Top