Webb Space Telescope Completes 5800 Mile Journey Across Ocean Before Launch

There’s no doubt that the James Webb Space Telescope has a long journey ahead of it as it travels 1.5 million KM away from Earth. But first this ground-breaking piece of engineering needed to complete a 5800 mile trip from California to Kourou, French Guiana.

To start, the telescope was packed into its specially designed shipping container known as STTARS or Space Telescope Transporter for Air, Road, and Sea. The STTARS shipping container also acts as a mobile clean room. This helps to prevent any contamination of the telescope. The container also boasts an HVAC system for regulating temperature and humidity.

After Webb was all boxed up, it was loaded onto the MN Colibri transport ship which departed from California and made its way down the west coast and across the Panama Canal. Once through the Canal, the ship and its cargo sailed to their final destination of Port de Pariacabo.

Finally, the telescope is on its last leg of its pre-launch journey with a relatively short drive from the ship to Europe’s Spaceport. Once there, the telescope will need to wait two long months for preparations to be complete before it embarks upon it’s main journey to the stars. The launch is currently scheduled for December 18th of 2021 if all goes according to plan. Considering that the launch has already been delayed multiple times, it would not come as a surprise if we do not see the telescope launch until 2022.