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A comment on NASA says Webb’s excess fuel likely to extend its lifetime expectations. Parent comment

Re:NASA says Webb’s excess fuel likely to extend its lifetim... by me_me_me on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @11:44AM (#29893885)
Weird nobody mentioned yet, JWST is at L2 (permanently shielded from sun by earth). L2 is not a stable and need correction burns to stay there that's the reason for life time of 20 years.

Only stable - self correcting - are L4 and L5 points .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point

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Re:NASA says Webb’s excess fuel likely to extend its lifetim... by carl_dr on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @11:54AM (#29894047)
JWST isn’t in Earth’s shadow - it orbits around L2 (approximately perpendicular to the Sun-Earth axis) at a radius comparable to the Earth-Moon distance. JWST has a huge solar array used to power the electronics on-board.

Even if it was stationary at L2, Earth wouldn’t completely shield it from the Sun - the point is too far from Earth/the Sun so large for it to.

There is a nice animation on https://webb.nasa.gov/content/about/orbit.html

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Re:NASA says Webb’s excess fuel likely to extend its lifetim... by me_me_me on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @01:14PM (#29895316)
You are absolutely correct, it even has a massive sun-shield for that :D
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