Why Astronomers Are “Crying and Throwing Up Everywhere” Over the Upcoming Telescope Launch

On or soon after Friday, NASA will launch its largest—and most complicated yet—orbiting telescope into space. / astronomers: my entire career hinges on this bucket of single point failures I’m so nervous I’m crying and throwing up everywhere.” Astrophysics postdoc Erin May, who studies exoplanet atmospheres—a major focus, pun yes intended, of the new telescope—tweeted, “HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE IN THESE CONDITIONS” with the hashtag #JWSTLaunchMemes. While Hubble orbits the Earth about 340 miles up, JWST won’t orbit Earth at all but will live at a point in space known as L2, one of the Earth-sun Lagrange points. But, he conceded, “That doesn’t mean we don’t have challenges,” and he called the sunshield deployment “one of the most challenging moments.” Keith Parrish, observatory manager for the JWST at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, was similarly sanguine—telling me that he’s been so busy that he hasn’t had time to worry—and similarly aware of the sunshield’s copious challenges. Those neurons are burned out, baby.” She followed it up: “At this point they should just stop giving us launch date updates and tell us a few days afterwards that JWST has launched.” Astrophysicist Catherine Slaughter tweeted, “The JWST launch is just astronomy’s version of that boat getting stuck in the Suez Canal—Objectively bad and anxiety-inducing, but also funnier the longer it goes on.” Christiansen also wondered if NASA would launch the telescope on Christmas Day itself if that’s when it’s ready—are concerns like human holidays insignificant for such a cosmic plan?