The James Webb Space Telescope is set to launch next month although the launch date has been pushed back a few days following an incident.

The incident saw the space telescope’s clamp band which was being used to attach the telescope to the upper stage of the Ariane 5 rocket, suddenly released and caused the observatory to vibrate.

While that doesn’t sound like a big deal, when you intend to send something that contains sensitive equipment 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth, you need to make sure it’s working properly. As such, NASA is now leading a team which will investigate the craft to insure it hasn’t been damaged.

“A NASA-led anomaly review board was immediately convened to investigate and instituted additional testing to determine with certainty the incident did not damage any components. NASA and its mission partners will provide an update when the testing is completed at the end of this week,” the spacefaring agency said in an update.

This means that the launch date of 18th December has been scrapped and now the James Webb Space Telescope will launch aboard the Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana, no earlier than 22nd December.

Of course that launch could be delayed by weather but we should see the telescope head to the heavens before the end of the year, barring any major roadblocks.

The telescope will travel to its destination – the Lagrange point L2 which is directly behind Earth when viewed from the Sun – for approximately a month. The space telescope will maintain that orbit around the Sun but it won’t be until late 2022 that NASA and other astronomers can start observations.

This is because the James Webb Space Telescope is expected to spend six months unfolding its mirrors, sun-shield and other systems.

With such a long timeline ahead of us, let’s hope that vibration didn’t cause any major damage to the telescope.