James Webb is in space! 'The easy part is done, now the work starts'

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has finally made it off Earth and into space, but there's a lot more to be done before its mission is deemed a complete success.

After more than a decade of delays and almost thirty years and $10 billion of development, the Ariane 5 rocket carrying the JWST launched from French Guiana at the opening of its launch window on December 25th at 7:20 a.m. EST (12:20 UTC). The rocket's upper stage separated from its lower stages to carry the folded-up JWST payload to the beginning of its trajectory toward the Lagrange Point 2 (L2), taking 16 minutes and 6 seconds. The JWST separated from the upper stage 27 minutes and 7 seconds after the rocket's launch.

"Webb's scientific promise is now closer than it ever has been. We are poised on the edge of a truly exciting time of discovery, of things we've never before seen or imagined," said Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA's science division.

L2 is a stable point in space nearly 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth, where it will stay in the same position relative to the Earth as they both orbit the Sun. Since launch, the JWST has fired its rocket thrusters to help direct it on its course toward this point. It has also successfully deployed an antenna on December 26th, capable of relaying 28.6 gigabytes of data to scientists on Earth, twice a day, at a speed of 3.5 megabytes per second. More mid-course correction burns will be necessary for JWST to reach L2 over its scheduled 29-day journey.

"The easy part is done, now the work starts," said Massimo Stiavelli, head of the Webb mission office at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.

You can watch the livestream from the rocket's launch here.