Comments by "H. de Jong" (@h.dejong2531) on "" video.

  1. JWST will be in an elliptical orbit, about 300,000 x 800,000 km. This orbit was chosen to avoid the Moon's shadow.
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  2. The L2 point itself is in partial shadow. They wanted JWST to be in full sunlight with no eclipses (=smaller solar panel, and no changes in temperature).
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  3. JWST will orbit the L2 point. You can visualize this orbit as being on the side of a hill and orbiting the top of the hill. The hill is not steep, but you do require the occasional course correction to sty in this orbit. This orbit doesn't collect debris: that will roll downhill. And you may be overestimating the amount of stuff in outer space. JWST will encounter no more than micrograms of dust per year.
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  4. Telescopes generally use reaction wheels to point at their targets, not thrusters.
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  5. Because L2 is the only one where you can use one sunshield to cover the Sun, Earth and the Moon.
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  6. Yes, it orbits at L2. Orbit radius is 300,000 x 800,000 km.
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  7. We have about 10 spacecraft orbiting the L2 point right now.
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  8. every 3 weeks or so.
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  9. It needs maintenance every 3 weeks or so, and current estimate is that it has enough fuel for 20 years of operations. When it runs out, it'll start to drift away from L2 and end up in a heliocentric orbit.
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