In essence, the space agency will be tracking the progress and setbacks of Northrop Grumman more closely as the contractor integrates the telescope with the spacecraft bus and sunshield and then moves on to final testing. “He’s frankly the most critical person I know,” Zurbuchen said during the teleconference. In an attempt to get the project back on track and raise the confidence level in a May 2020 launch, NASA is creating an external independent review board, chaired by NASA veteran Thomas Young. James Webb was to be up and running to help prepare this report, arguably the most valuable part of the report, but the continued delays mean the decadal survey might need to proceed without James Webb. The delay will likely affect the decadal survey, a report put together by the National Academy of Sciences for NASA and Congress every 10 years that outlines the biggest astronomy and planetary science objectives for the next decade. The space telescope will also observe the formation of early galaxies and stars, and it will probe exoplanets and watery moons chemical for signs of life. When it finally launches, James Webb will study a period in the ancient universe known as reionization, when the first photons of light were released more than 13.5 billion years ago. Congress has grown impatient with the continued delays and cost overruns, while astrophysicists who were planning to submit science proposals for the telescope are left waiting. James Webb is seen as the spiritual successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, but its continuing problems and delays are becoming a serious problem. The full extent of the damage was learned more recently, and leaks have been discovered in the thrusters, forcing NASA to make a plan to replace damaged components. The second major issue has to do with the propulsion thrusters, which were apparently improperly handled, leading to contamination of the valves and damaged seals last summer. NASA has a plan to repair the tears and is also addressing an issue of too much slack in a sunshield cable by adding a mechanical tensioner called a "doghouse," which could help fix the tearing issues in future tests. The largest tears in the material are about 10 centimeters. The five-layered sunshield is about the size of a tennis court and is made of a lightweight heat-resistant material called Kapton. Those mistakes include small tears in the sunshield that occurred during deployment, folding, and loading tests. “Tasks are just taking longer to complete, and also there were a few mistakes that happened," Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said during a media teleconference today. Engineers are now integrating the telescope with its large spacecraft element, which is equipped with thrusters and a sunshield, after which final telescope testing can take place. The telescope itself, known as the optical telescope and integrated science instrument module (OTIS), arrived at Northrop Grumman's facilities in Redondo Beach, California, in early February. Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to play At this time, NASA has not done a full analysis of cost and schedule, and the agency hopes to raise the confidence level in a May 2020 launch as well as determine an overrun cost estimate by this summer. In addition, NASA expects to break its $8 billion funding maximum for the project, which will require reauthorization from Congress to complete the space telescope. The delays were officially announced today, but were expected following a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released earlier this month.Īt this point, NASA says it has only 70 percent confidence that the agency and its primary contractor for JWST, Northrop Grumman, will be able to meet the May 2020 launch date. That date was already a delay from a 2018 launch date scheduled back in 2011 when the JWST program was reorganized. The delay, caused by development taking longer than anticipated and a few technical setbacks, pushes the space telescope back about a year from the previous targeted launch date of spring 2019. NASA's next flagship space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, has been pushed back again, this time to an estimated launch in May 2020.
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