It is a mission more than 25 years in the making. The revolutionary JWST (James Webb Space Telescope)—a partnership between NASA, the ESA (European Space Agency), and the CSA (Canadian Space Agency)— has launched atop its Ariane 5 rocket from launchpad ELA-3 at the Guiana Space Centre in South America.
Liftoff of James Webb occurred at the opening of a 32-minute-long window on Saturday, December 25 at 12:20 UTC (7:20 am EST). Ariane 5 placed the telescope into a 30-day transfer trajectory to the L2 Lagrange point in the Sun-Earth system.