Nasa delays the launch of its next-generation space telescope
NASA has delayed the launch of its next great space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, until no earlier than May 2020 — nearly a year later than planned — due to the need for more testing of the telescope’s intricate systems and setbacks, including tears in the tennis-court-size sun shield, the space agency announced on March 27.
Top officials said Wednesday that more time is needed to assemble and test the James Webb Space Telescope, which is considered a successor to the long-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.
It’s the latest in a series of delays for the telescope, dating back a decade. More recently, Webb was supposed to fly this year, but last fall Nasa bumped the launch until 2019. “Simply put, we have one shot to get this right before going into space,” explained Thomas Zurbuchen, Nasa’s associate administrator of science. For such a highly complex machine designed to “look at the universe in a way that we’ve never seen it,” there can be no shortcuts, he stressed.
“All the observatory’s flight hardware is now complete; however, the issues brought to light with the spacecraft element are prompting us to take the necessary steps to refocus our efforts on the completion of this ambitious and complex observatory,” NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot said in a statement.
NASA originally hoped to launch the James Webb Space Telescope in 2018 but delayed it until 2019 last September due to delays in the observatory’s assembly.
The potential for more issues arose in February, when a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office warned that the telescope faced a high probability of more delays that could push the telescope beyond its budget cap. In 2001, Congress assigned the telescope a cost cap of $8 billion prior to launch.
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