NASA reveals major delay for $8-billion Hubble successor

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NASA reveals major delay for $8-billion Hubble successor
27 MARCH 2018. Alexandra Witze
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03863-5

Setback for James Webb Space Telescope could have broader effects on agency’s astrophysics programme.
NASA will delay the launch of its ambitious James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) by nearly a year, until approximately May 2020. That is likely to push the cost of the mission — the most complex space-science telescope ever built — over the US$8-billion limit set by the US Congress. It is the first major setback since NASA revised its plans for the project in 2011, after years of slipping schedules and rising costs.

NASA announced the delay on 27 March, saying that engineers needed more time to assemble and test the components of the spacecraft at its main contractor, Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, California. Among other problems, the collapsible, tennis-court-sized sunshield that protects the observatory’s 6.5-metre mirror took weeks longer than expected to fold and refold during testing.

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The agency did not say how much the delay would cost, but some estimates suggest that it could add a few hundred million dollars to the project. In recent years, Congress has pushed NASA hard to hold down the cost of the telescope and other future missions.

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[Joe Wooten]

It should have been cancelled years ago, but it became a pork project for Barbara Mikulski.