You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Science & Technology
NASA doubles down again on a losing game!
2018-06-28
[SpaceNews] JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) suffers another launch delay, breaches cost cap!

NASA announced yet another launch delay for the James Webb Space Telescope June 27, pushing the flagship observatory’s launch to no earlier than late March 2021 while breaking a cost cap set by Congress.

NASA said it was now aiming for a launch of the telescope on March 30, 2021, nearly a year later than the May 2020 date that the agency announced three months earlier. That date came after a delay announced last September that moved the mission’s launch from October 2018 to the spring of 2019.

NASA also announced a new development cost estimate of $8.8 billion, which is 10 percent above the $8 billion cost cap established by Congress during a “re-plan” of the mission several years ago. The overall lifecycle cost of the mission, which includes operations after launch for at least five years, is $9.66 billion.

Before the announced slip last year to March-June 2019, JWST had been slated to launch in October 2018 – a date itself that was 11 years after the originally planned launch target of 2007 when the project was first conceived in 1997.
Posted by:3dc

#15  Sell it to Turkey.
Posted by: bbrewer126   2018-06-28 21:45  

#14  And they'll use it to find "livable planets" (all conjecture) millions of light years away. Totally useful information.

Bear in mind a 180 tilt of two axes and it's looking at you (et. al.).

Not necessarily delays due to launch.
May be payload augmentation.
Posted by: Skidmark   2018-06-28 19:56  

#13  I'm sure the design helped Muslims feel better about themselves. Sacrifices must be made.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2018-06-28 12:11  

#12  Hell, by 2021 the BFR will be coming online. With that monster rocket they could almost launch an earth based observatory with a robot operators for the vacuum of space. Palomar to space?
Posted by: 3dc   2018-06-28 12:11  

#11  Ask for a bid from SpaceX to convert a Dragon Capsule to do the job using COST hardware…?
Posted by: magpie   2018-06-28 11:04  

#10  But, I suppose, they can always announce that muzz can "feel good" about the livable planets.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2018-06-28 10:07  

#9  At the rate they are going, the X-37C and orbital robots will arrive first and a bigger space telescope could be built in orbit.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2018-06-28 10:06  

#8  And they'll use it to find "livable planets" (all conjecture) millions of light years away. Totally useful information.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2018-06-28 10:04  

#7  Delta IV
Posted by: 3dc   2018-06-28 09:35  

#6  Oh and it's the shape it is because it was designed to first fold for the space shuttle then for the Ariane.

A non-folding design would have had much less trouble.

A non-folding one couldn't fit on the shuttle or Ariane but could on a FH or Delta V with custom fairings with much less cost and hassle. Of course it's too late for that kind of common sense at this stage.
Posted by: 3dc   2018-06-28 09:34  

#5  The same Northrup that will now have a monopoly on solid fuel rockets for ICBMs. That doesn't sound promising on any level. See the other post today "Let's play monopoly".
Posted by: 3dc   2018-06-28 09:10  

#4  So it looks like Lockheed is more responsible than Northrup?
Posted by: 3dc   2018-06-28 09:07  

#3  SLS is a separate boondoggle. This POS is going up on that non-American rocket the EU's Ariane.
Even worse there are no delays on the EU side of this deal. It's all on the US side.
some JSWT background
Moreover, these
are not the first issues to face the James Webb Space Telescope project in the last nine months. Following NASA’s announcement in September that the telescopes launch was slipping from October 2018 to NET (No Earlier Than) March-June 2019, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warned in February 2018 of dangers of additional slips beyond the realigned date due to ongoing issues with integration and testing operations and prime contractor [Northrop Grumman] optimism.
The report was particularly scathing toward Northrop Grumman, highlighting the company’s work on JWST as the project’s critical path toward being able to launch at the end of the window in June 2019 as well as Northrop’s continued “optimism” for schedules and underestimation of time needed to complete work.
Moreover, the GAO identified five specific areas that posed threats to the March-June 2019 launch schedule, including:

“resolving lingering technical issues from the OTIS (Optical Telescope & Integrated Science Instrument Module) cryovacuum test and preparing and shipping of OTIS to the Northrop Grumman facility in California for integration with the spacecraft,
Completing integration of spacecraft hardware, and conducting spacecraft element environmental tests and remaining deployments of the spacecraft and sunshield – activities which, to date, have taken considerably longer than planned,
Integrating the completed OTIS element with the spacecraft element and testing the full observatory in the fifth and final integration phase, which includes another set of challenging environmental tests,
Mitigating approximately 47 remaining tracked hardware and software risks to acceptable levels and continuing to address the project’s 300+ potential single point failures to the extent possible, and
Preparing and shipping the observatory to the launch site and completing final launch site processing, including installation of critical release mechanisms.”
As a result, the GAO warned that JWST was at risk of exceeding its $8 billion formulation and development cost cap prior to launch.
Posted by: 3dc   2018-06-28 09:06  

#2  It's beginning to look like the JWST is a secret project lead by Lockheed.

Posted by: Seeking Cure For Ignorance   2018-06-28 07:36  

#1  Now what. One thing I don't get about the JWST is just why it was designed with the primary mirror at basically a right angle to the sun shield. If everything had been co-axial I would have thought it would make things a lot simpler to construct. To test. And to launch. Of course is this delay related to the never ending abbrtion that the SLS has turned into. Congress gets a lot of the blame for that. Reconfiguring the Suttle External Tank into a heavy launch vehicle should have been fairly simple. Instead it seems to be a jobs program for Marshall Space Center and Lockheed. Reminds me of the X-33. When Lockheed was having problems getting the compossite tanks to hold up they offered to just build the tanks out of Al-Li alloy. At least then the project could have proceeded to the test flight phase. Or when NASA took over the DC-X from the SDI and proceeded to destroy the vehicle. If this is due to problems related to the SLS screw NASA. Just sign a launch contract with Space X. At least they fly hardware
Posted by: Cheaderhead   2018-06-28 06:29  

00:00