James Webb Space Telescope

[Dr Mordrid]

Just a pic to show its scale (it's 80' x 40' x 40') (JWST site)

Due to be launched to Lagrange point 2 in 2013. This is a mockup @ the Goddard center.

[Jammrock]

It looks like a deathstar laser canon. How the hell are they getting that monstrosity up there?

[Dr Mordrid]

Advanced folding tech plus a Heavy class rocket, probably an Atlas V Heavy or the in-development SpaceX Falcon 9 Heavy - either with a big nose fairing.

Those can orbit a fully loaded bus, or in the case of a Falcon 9 Heavy two of them because of its 27 engines

Then there is SpaceX's other proposed monster the BFR, for which they're developing a Saturn V class engine. Yes, BFR means what you think; Big F'ing Rocket

JWST deployment (8 mb WMV)

[Claymonkey]

I really like the concept of folded and/or inflatable space equipment. However, how is that thing going to survive any sort of space debris hitting it. It looks fragile and these kinds of things need preciseness in a way that is hard to fathom.

[Dr Mordrid]

The backplane and cryogenic mirror segments are Beryllium; light but very strong, making it a commonly used alloy component. It's also used in the nuclear power industry and as a component of nuclear weapons because it reflects neutrons. Ex: the amount of Plutonium used in a bomb can be minimized by surrounding it with a Beryllium shell.

Downside: toxic.

The sunshield consists of five layers of Kapton (the micrometeoroid shield used in spacesuits) with aluminum and doped-silicon coatings to keep the sun from warming the cryogenic mirror & detectors.

L2's going to be a busy place. It's the future home of the ESA's Herschel Space Observatory and Gaia probe and Bigelow wants to build his large (660+ cu/m) landable moonbase there, most likely using SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets with enhanced Dragon ships.

NASA my well get to the moon after the NewSpace companies.

[Jammrock]

I was reading the BBC article about this monstrosity and a thought popped into me head. Scary I know but ...

how the hell do they plan on fixing the James Webb telescope when it's 1.5 million km away from Earth. We don't even go to the Moon anymore, so how are we going to fix something that's farther away than even that?

Because we all know how many times we've had to fix and upgrade Hubble...

[Dr Mordrid]

It'll be at L2, which as I said will be a busy place in the coming years.

Besides Bigelow/Lockheed planning manned missions there NASA plans to use it as a staging point for manned missions to near-Earth asteroids, perhaps even before we return to the moon. Manned missions imply at least the possibility of servicing missions to the other assets at L2.

Ships capable of L2 missions would be those capable of lunar missions; SpaceX's Dragon, NASA's Orion and the coming lunar versions of China's Shenzhou and Russia's Soyuz.

There are also persistent reports that Lockheed is building an 8-man capsule to be used in support of Bigelow. They've hinted strongly at this, even saying they'd use their well proven (100% reliable over ~50 years of use) Corona nose-first re-entry system.

I doubt Benson Aerospace's Dream Chaser spaceplane has a heat shield capable of lunar re-entry (25,000 mph vs. 17,500 mph for orbital returns), but if it can be done they too have a partnership with Lockheed that could well add them to the list.

If these efforts bear fruit the next 10-15 years could get exciting.