<story><title>Webb’s Journey to L2 Is Nearly Complete</title><url>https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/01/21/webbs-journey-to-l2-is-nearly-complete/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jacquesm</author><text>About three more hours to go and then the injection burn will commence. That is the most critical step still remaining of the deployment steps, everything has worked perfectly so far.&lt;p&gt;What an amazing accomplishment.&lt;p&gt;If you are wondering why the satellite is still moving with 200 m&amp;#x2F;s that is because there is a component that is already out of the plane of the ecliptic which will be conserved to help reduce the amount of fuel required for the orbit insertion, so it won&amp;#x27;t go to &amp;#x27;zero&amp;#x27;. This is a bit confusing, especially because of the language on some of NASA&amp;#x27;s websites where they suggest that the satellite will come to a stop, this is true but only in one axis, the one relative to Earth.&lt;p&gt;In the same vein: Webb hasn&amp;#x27;t really arrived at L2, but at a point almost 800,000 km away from it, perpendicular to the line Earth-L2 (which of course is a moving system itself!). So Webb will be orbiting in a plane perpendicular to Earth-L2 at a very large distance from L2, which guarantees that it will have power (because the solar panels will be continuously in sunlight).&lt;p&gt;Edit: two more hours to go. JWST is still moving at roughly the speed of a commercial airliner (730 km&amp;#x2F;h).&lt;p&gt;Edit: &lt;i&gt;one&lt;/i&gt; more hour to go, and NASA just posted this image to show the orbit in an easy to digest format:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;jwst.nasa.gov&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;webbLaunch&amp;#x2F;assets&amp;#x2F;images&amp;#x2F;orbit&amp;#x2F;trajectoryMapping2.41-NoText-1000px.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;jwst.nasa.gov&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;webbLaunch&amp;#x2F;assets&amp;#x2F;images&amp;#x2F;orbit...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Webb’s Journey to L2 Is Nearly Complete</title><url>https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/01/21/webbs-journey-to-l2-is-nearly-complete/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>JorgeGT</author><text>Related very good news: thanks to the very precise orbital injection, Webb has excess propelllant that will be used for station-keeping, significatively prolonging the mission: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blogs.nasa.gov&amp;#x2F;webb&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;nasa-says-webbs-excess-fuel-likely-to-extend-its-lifetime-expectations&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blogs.nasa.gov&amp;#x2F;webb&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;nasa-says-webbs-exces...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>