哈勃太空望远镜的继任者将于12月发射

The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope is expected to launch on December 18.

价值100亿美元的詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜预计将于12月18日发射升空。

Yes, countless targeted lift-offs have come and gone in the past, but this one has a reality to it that the others didn’t: the successor observatory to Hubble is now actually built.

没错，过去有过无数次有目标的发射，但这一次有其他几次没有的现实:哈勃的继任者天文台现在真的建成了。

All that is required is to ship the finished telescope to French Guiana, put it on the top of an Ariane rocket, light the engines and stand well back.

所有需要做的就是把完成的望远镜运送到法属圭亚那，把它放在阿丽亚娜火箭的顶部，点燃引擎，然后站在后面。

“It’s fantastic for everybody; it’s a real boost for all those that have worked on the project,” said Prof Gillian Wright, the senior UK scientist on Webb who co-leads one of the telescope’s four instrument packages.

“这对每个人来说都很棒;这对所有参与该项目的人来说是一个真正的推动，”Gillian Wright教授说，他是韦伯天文台的资深英国科学家，也是该望远镜四个仪器包之一的共同负责人。