NASA’s Next Space Telescope is nearing completion.
A new assessment from a federal organization in charge of auditing programs warns that the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope, is likely to face major development delays.
For the past two decades, Webb has been a $8.8 billion endeavor. NASA revealed in September that the telescope’s launch would be delayed by five months. Instead of October 2018, the new date was selected for March to June 2019. NASA stated at the time that the delay was not due to hardware issues, but rather to the assembly of the many complex elements taking longer than expected.According to the Government Accountability Office, this is not the only delay. According to the Government Accountability Office, the launch is likely to be delayed again due to the amount of work NASA still needs to do before JWST can be launched.
According to the article, there is only one and a half months left of the “schedule reserve,” which allows for delays or difficulties to be rectified. If Webb misses the deadline, he could easily surpass the budget cap set by Congress in 2011.
Many people, including NASA, Northrop Grumman (the telescope’s primary contractor), and the European and Canadian Space Agencies, are disappointed by the announcement. Webb will almost certainly be launched. After 20 years of building and development, the hardware has been properly tested, and the majority of the monies have already been spent. The road to the launchpad may be more difficult than anticipated.
When Hubble was barely off the ground in 1990, NASA began considering the Webb Telescope. NASA’s next generation space observatory envisioned a telescope that could observe infrared wavelengths, revealing the weakest light from faraway galaxies and stars.
Webb is a beautiful and impressive piece of engineering. The Webb is a robot that looks like modern art. It has a honeycomb-like arrangement of 18 mirrors made of beryllium, which is lightweight and gold-plated.
Once completed, the telescope will be made up of a complicated array of parts. The majority of Webb’s assembly took done at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center in Maryland. It was then put through a battery of testing. The sensitive telescopic instruments were immersed in a cylinder chamber that simulates harsh outer-space conditions by scientists and engineers. In November 2017, mission personnel tested the delicate mirrors, instruments, and other components to ensure they could resist the sounds and vibrations of a rocket launch. The telescope was attached to hefty metal plates, vigorously shaken, and then transported into an acoustic room where gigantic vuvuzela speakers were used to fill it with noise.
At the end of each run, scientists and engineers evaluate the test data for anomalies. During vibration testing in February 2017, they discovered an irregularity. According to the GAO report, it took more than a month to fix this problem (which was not publicly revealed), and additional tests were delayed by several weeks.
Other issues took up the month of April. It was the spaceship this time that would hold the observatory’s computers and solar panel, as well as the sun screen – the layers the size of a tennis court that would shelter technology from the sun. Northrop Grumman is a defense contractor.
Both are being built in California, where the company is based. GAO details the occurrence in excruciating detail. According to the study, a contractor worker used too much energy, permanently damaging pressure transducers on the spaceship, which are elements of the propulsion systems that monitor fuel levels. An complicated welding method was used to replace the transducers.
Webb was put into a shipping box in May and flown to NASA’s huge Johnson Space Center in Texas aboard a C-5 transport aircraft. The telescope was placed in a cryogenic chamber to be exposed to the freezing temperatures of space. It survived both the cryogenic test and Hurricane Harvey’s destruction. The storm flooded Houston’s streets, forcing some Webb guardians to sleep in conference rooms or offices until the storm passed.
Webb is finally flown to California to collect its spacecraft hardware, which includes the solar protection. It will also be subjected to additional testing. Webb will be considerably too heavy to fly with all of its sections assembled, therefore it will travel to French Guiana by ship. It will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket built by the European Space Agency and operated in Europe. Ariane’s fleet has recently been plagued by questions about readiness after a rocket misplaced its payload of two communication satellites. NASA is investigating the anomaly in collaboration with the European Space Agency. It will take the agencies a year to examine and correct the anomaly, but the Webb team is clearly stressed.
Northrop Grumman’s delays are being blamed by the GAO. According to the report, “for several years, the prime contractor overestimated workforce reductions, and technical issues prevented this planned reduction, forcing the use of costs reserves.” Northrop Grumman has not responded to a request for comment on the evaluation.
GAO alleges that Northrop Grumman used up three months of reserve time due to “lessons learned” from the deployment of both spacecraft elements and sunshields, but does not elaborate.
It seems foreboding, especially when you consider how difficult Webb’s deployment will be. When the telescope is launched, Webb folds up like a spring blossom. Webb will spend two weeks blooming as it approaches the sun’s orbit. It will unfold the solar panels, antennas, and sun shield while also making repairs to land in the correct location. The method involves approximately 180 automatic deployments. There is very little that could go wrong. NASA authorities stated that if six of the steps were not performed, Webb will perish. If the telescope encounters a problem that prevents it from fully opening, it will be abandoned. Unlike Hubble, Webb is not built to receive maintenance workers. isn’t designed to receive repair crews. Its distance from Earth of nearly one million miles makes it too difficult for current U.S. technology to get there.
Webb is also in danger of running out of money. The overall cost of the project is anticipated to be $8.8 billion: $8.8 billion for construction, development, and operations, and $837 billion for operating. At the time of Webb’s initial proposal, estimates projected that it would cost between $1 billion and $3.5 billion. Costs have climbed substantially over the years, prompting Congress to direct NASA to limit construction and development to $8 billion. The GAO said that the most recent launch delay, as well as any future delays, could put Webb over this limit. Because of Webb’s enormous cost, government leaders are wary about NASA’s plan to launch a space telescope following Webb.WFIRST, which will investigate unexplained dark energy and exoplanets, is still in its early phases of development. Last year, NASA Headquarters directed the WFIRST project to reduce its budget by $400 million. Due to funding restrictions, the Trump administration stated last month that WFIRST will be canceled.
The GAO report may indicate that Webb will soon receive more bad news. The independent Webb review board will perform its own audit early in the year to see if it can meet its 2019 launch date.
has reviewed and selected research proposals in the interim for the first year. This telescope will have a power 100 times greater than Hubble and be able see further into the cosmos than before. It is a telescope that hundreds of astronomers from around the world want to use. Webb’s first months will be spent focusing on both nearby and distant targets, such as the planets of our solar system. The images will be stunning, with incredible clarity and colour. Hopefully, we will be able to appreciate the wait when seeing these images.