NASA will need at least another $1.5 billion to finish the James Webb Space Telescope and the launch of the observatory will slip to at least a year to 2015, an independent review panel reported today.But those estimates are predicated on NASA receiving an extra $250 million in each of the next two years -- an unlikely scenario in the current fiscal environment, NASA officials said in a media teleconference.
Total cost of the project now is expected to rise to at least $6.5 billion -- or $1.5 billion over the cost estimate provided to Congress by NASA when the project was confirmed in 2008.
At that time, NASA said the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope would be launched in 2014. The review panel said Sept. 2015 is the earliest the observatory might be launched aboard a European Space Agency Ariane 5 rocket from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana, South America.
Check out the review panel's final report HERE.
10 comments:
GEE WHIZ...Imagine that! A NASA project going over budget. No...that's impossible! When are we going to close this thing down!
jaxdodger.... shut up and go home....
"NASA said the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope"
Incorrect, JWST is not an HST successor. They are two completely different types of telescopes that see in two completely different spectrums.
Why are we paying the Europeans to launch this? More lack of vision from our leaders!
look I cn C ura nus
JWST is launching on an a European Ariane V launch vehicle because the JWST mission is a collaborative project between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
WTF...only a few billion...NASA is a joke...when are we going to reel them in and make them responsible....our space agency is a dollar draining joke...enough already!
JWST is launching on an a European Ariane V launch vehicle because the JWST because NASA lacks a heavy lift rocket that could get it and the fuel it needs to get into the L2 orbit required for the instruments to meet the science requirements.
Not a big shock. Anytime any new technology is implemented the cost estimation is impossible. You are breaking new ground and you resesign as new tech shows up on the scene.
Nevertheless the original plan was for a Hubble replacement that had a one-piece mirror of about 4m diameter, which could have been launched on Shuttle or an EELV, and as I recall Golden arbitrarily upped it to 8m which required the much more complex deployment mechanism. Had we stuck with the original approach it might have been possible to launch much earlier, and launch more than one; typically the second unit costs only 10% as much as the first. This would have doubled the observing time. It is an error for NASA to wait for someone to hand down an arbitrary but extremely challenging goal and a blank check. The practical value of any mission must be greater than its cost.
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