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A comment on Lagrange Points Could Become Battlegrounds in a New Space Race. Parent comment

Re:Lagrange Points Could Become Battlegrounds in a New Space... by PartiallyTyped on Monday December 25, 2023 @10:07AM (#38763175)
IIRC JWST is not actually at the Lagrange point, but it drifts a bit, and occasionally fixes itself.
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Re:Lagrange Points Could Become Battlegrounds in a New Space... by pests on Monday December 25, 2023 @04:52PM (#38766486)
A sibling comment to yours points out that it actually orbits the L2 at the same distance the moon orbits the Earth and takes 6 months to complete a revolution.
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Re:Lagrange Points Could Become Battlegrounds in a New Space... by PartiallyTyped on Tuesday December 26, 2023 @01:54AM (#38769458)
Yes, the orbit isn't exact / perfect/ stable either [1].

> An L2 orbit is unstable, so JWST needs to use propellant to maintain its halo orbit around L2 (known as station-keeping) to prevent the telescope from drifting away from its orbital position.[186] It was designed to carry enough propellant for 10 years,[187] but the precision of the Ariane 5 launch and the first midcourse correction were credited with saving enough onboard fuel that JWST may be able to maintain its orbit for around 20 years instead.[188][189][190]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope

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