Posted: Jan 21, 2022 4:43 pm
TopCat wrote:So the L2 insertion burn is scheduled for next Monday, 24th Jan.
It's nearly a million miles away. How do they measure its position and velocity accurately enough to get the burn - duration and direction - exactly right?
I can think of a variety of ways, including integrating telemetry data from onboard accelerometers (once for the velocity, again for the distance), but I have no feel for whether that could be precise or accurate enough.
Anyone with actual knowledge? I mean it can't be rocket science, surely ... ah wait
One may follow the telescope at the eyes.nasa.gov pages. Go to Solar system and a search on JWST brings up James Webb Space Telescope that can be clicked... The image it returns has the telescope still stowed so it's going to be some time before it gets updated, I guess.
The calculations in that tool in general are truly gobsmacking...
Anyhoo here's a link to the view I've just returned from: https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/orrery/#/sc_ ... .856+00:00