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Astronomy

More Cost Increases And Delays For Webb Space Telescope

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
June 27, 2018
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More Cost Increases And Delays For Webb Space Telescope

Media Telecon on Status of James Webb Space Telescope, June 27th
“NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT [17:00 UTC], Wednesday, June 27, to provide an update on the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope and the findings of an external independent review board. Webb will be the world’s premier infrared space observatory and the largest astronomical space science telescope ever built. Audio of the call will stream live on NASA’s website [https://www.nasa.gov/live].”
NASA Completes Webb Telescope Review, Commits to Launch in Early 2021
“The Independent Review Board (IRB) established by NASA to assess progress on its James Webb Space Telescope has unanimously recommended that development on the world’s premier science observatory should continue; NASA has established a new launch date for Webb of March 30, 2021. A report issued by the review board addresses a range of factors influencing Webb’s schedule and performance, including the technical challenges and tasks remaining by primary contractor Northrop Grumman before launch.”
“As a result of the delay, Webb’s total lifecycle cost to support the March 202l launch date is estimated at $9.66 billion. The development cost estimate to support the new launch date is $8.8B (up from the $8B development cost estimate established in 2011). Along with the IRB’s broad-view assessment, NASA also considered data from the project’s Standing Review Board (SRB). Both review panels had concluded that a 2020 launch date would have been feasible before the recent acoustics test anomaly.”
“Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems (NGAS) should establish corrective actions in processes, training, personnel certification, individual accountability and a robust testing, analysis and inspection process. Agree. NGAS stood down operations and performed an independent set of reviews and rewrites of all propulsion procedures including feedback from the performers. Also, applied Integration & Test (I&T) procedure expertise to manufacturing operations. To further enhance robustness in I&T, NGAS will be incorporating cross program independent reviews of the table top and pre-task briefing processes.”

NASA Announces Contract for Next-Generation Space Telescope Named after Space Pioneer (2002)
“The James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled for launch in 2010 aboard an expendable launch vehicle. NASA today selected TRW, Redondo Beach, Calif., to build a next-generation successor to the Hubble Space Telescope in honor of the man who led NASA in the early days of the fledgling aerospace agency. Under the terms of the contract valued at $824.8 million, TRW will design and fabricate the observatory’s primary mirror and spacecraft. TRW also will be responsible for integrating the science instrument module into the spacecraft as well as performing the pre-flight testing and on-orbit checkout of the observatory.”

Webb Space Telescope May Bust Its Budget Cap Yet Again (Updated) (2018)
Management Shake Up on Webb Space Telescope (2018)
Yet Another Webb Problem Review Panel (2018)
More Cost Overruns and Delays for Webb (2010)

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

9 responses to “More Cost Increases And Delays For Webb Space Telescope”

  1. echos of the mt's says:
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    All it could take is a couple of things going wrong with the origami unfolding and it’ll be a $10 billion piece of junk.

  2. wwheaton says:
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    OMG. Unresolved 300+ single point failure modes, with no provision for on-orbit repairs ! To continue:

    1. Recognize that this is a catastrophe for GWST, on a par with the 1990 discovery of the spherical aberration fault in the HST mirror. Do what is necessary and realistic to push on.

    2. Suspend GWST further until plans have been developed and approved to allow in-space human servicing of the spacecraft and telescope, with as much robotic assistance as can be usefully contrived.

    3. Expand the Gateway planned for lunar orbit to be the basis for a crewed self-propelled vehicle that can go out to Sun-Earth L2, to service spacecraft and instruments out there. This means it will need provisions for at least 2 months to get to L2 and return, plus whatever is needed for the actual servicing, plus contingency.

    4. Consider alternative crewed launchers for everything going beyond LEO — Falcon Heavy obviously, plus any other competitive rockets that could be ready in the 2012 to 2025 time frame. This might be a way to save on some of the additional costs we face. Otherwise we risk staking everything on SLS.

    5. Refurbish HST, and move it to Earth-Moon L4 or L5, to provide a long-term backup until GWST is operational. Hold WFIRST, obviously, and consider putting it in L4 or L5 as well, when funds allow.

    An important side benefit to this proposal, besides providing a more realistic set of capabilities to protect GWST from further foolish optimism, is that it would provide us with a foundation of capabilities for human operations in High Earth Orbit, clear out to Sun-Earth L2, which will surely be needed for the next crewed Deep Space missions, to Phobos, Mars, asteroids, or wherever.

    (A big disadvantage, from my personal point of view, is that I will never live long enough to see it through to fruition. Damn. But at least it seems like something that could actually work, instead of basing everything on the thread of Northrop-Grumman’s over-optimistic hopes.)

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      There you go again, trying to think ahead.

    • Terry Stetler says:
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      4) hold it in storage until BFS is ready for cis-lunar/BEO ops

    • MartinH says:
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      I like the idea of refurbishing Hubble, but isn’t its IR performance comparatively poor?

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        Yes. A completely different mission.

      • PsiSquared says:
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        Compared to Hubble, yes. Hubble can see out to 2.5?m. JWST will be able to see out to 28?m. Huge difference.

        • fcrary says:
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          For HST, going out to 2.5 microns takes the NICMOS instrument (Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer.) Its cooler glitched and its nitrogen supply ran out. That’s something a servicing mission could fix. But, yes, HST will never get into the mid-IR, no matter what sort of servicing mission someone comes up with. And even in the near IR, it wouldn’t have the sensitivity JWST was designed for.

  3. Leonard McCoy says:
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    Its dead Jim – time to move on.