[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. |