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Halfway there

It has been two weeks since the James Webb Space Telescope was launched. In these two weeks it has already travelled over a million kilometers away, roughly three quarters of it's total journey into it's destination in orbit around the L2 point. It's still travelling at supersonic speed (although no one can hear it), slowly decelerating on it's uphill path. It will take another teo weeks until it finally reaches there.

Yesterday the unfolding of it's huge main mirror also completed. It was the final phase of major preparations for it to be fully in operational configuration. The last two weeks it can just enjoy the ride.

It's a shame we can't see it out there live. Looking at the pictures and 3D models just doesn't give it a justice. Of course the team could have included a camera or two to send back live images of the telescope itself. But the fact it's front side tries to stay in the dark, shielded from the sunlight wouldn't yield much of anything to see even if we could film it from that side. On the other side it has it's highly effective sun shield, deflecting all the light coming at it to try to keep the business side of the telescope operational. The pictures taken from this side would just bee oversaturated from all the reflected light. We just need to trust the telemetry that it's there and everything is as it should be.