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| Science & Technology |
| JWST absorbs all money and can't deliver |
| 2019-03-28 |
| [SpaceNews] As NASA commits to performing another cost and schedule estimate for the James Webb Space Telescope, the chairman of an independent review board said he’s concerned about its ability to remain on track for a launch in two years. Speaking at a meeting of the Committee of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the National Academies’ Space Science Week event here March 26, Tom Young, who chaired the Independent Review Board chartered by NASA last year to review cost and schedule problems with JWST, said that since the agency revised the schedule of the mission last June work on the space telescope appeared be taking longer than expected. “We went back and took a look at schedule performance as a part of our assessment,” he said. “One thing really did catch our attention and that was, in our judgement, that the consumption of margin at the time we looked at that was significantly higher than we would have expected.” Young said the board didn’t do a formal analysis of the current target launch date of end of March 2021 but rather “some back-of-the-envelope looks” at the schedule for the remaining two years before launch. “It suggested to us there was cause for concern,” he said. “Reserved had been consumed at a pretty high rate and the impact of that should really be better understood and analyzed.” |
| Posted by:3dc |