Webb telescope launch date slips again

We "don't have a lot of reserve" left.

Read the whole story

 

[melgross]

My local CVS is practically begging people to come in for shots. How about NASA buy enough stock to vaccinate everyone at the launch facility and their families?

Why doesn’t the EU do it? It’s their spaceport after all.

 

[Ushio]

some quick websearching hasn't yielded much other than reddit crap,
and so I'm very seriously wondering about
the multiple comments over the years about how
once JWST is on station its "unmaintainable/unserviceable"

This is, presumably, by design given that HST was built to be deployed by shuttle,
and periodically visited by shuttle, and no one figured that a spacecraft capable
of getting to the Lagrange point would exist to go service JWST.

With new spaceflight capabilities coming online (Starship, even Orion if we want to believe
that SLS flies more than once) is JWST still "doomed" if the insanely complex,
nearly 200 step deployment process fails?

The obvious caveats that come to mind:
* money to fly "tbd" spacecraft to JWST at the lagrange point
* money to train astronauts to do whatever servicing is required
* money and time to develop whatever repair tools, systems are needed
* TBD spacecraft being able to station keep with JWST? (presumably no Canadarm grapple fixture anywhere on JWST
* spacecraft needs an airlock for cycling while repair crew goes in and out
* rad hardening for 'tbd' spacecraft, EVA suits because in 'deep space'

That's the first order list that comes to mind: but I still ask the question because
for the stake of just how much $$$ was spent on JWST, if deploy step
154 fails, and all the remote troubleshooting fails, does it really
just get thrown away ? ( sunk cost fallacy enters the rambling here too I suppose)


Does a, say, $150M repair mission to get the multi-billion dollar JWST back online
come into the conversation?

The JWST is going to be 4 times further from Earth than the Moon and humanity hasn't gone to the moon for decades. If the JWST launches this year or next no one can currently get out there and fix it like what happened to the hubble.

Sure maybe the SpaceX spaceship can do it but that is still some significant time away.

 

[Ushio]

My local CVS is practically begging people to come in for shots. How about NASA buy enough stock to vaccinate everyone at the launch facility and their families?

Why doesn’t the EU do it? It’s their spaceport after all.

The EU can't even vaccinate itself (plus France is one of the most anti-vax western nations in the world).

 

[idontliketopickusernames]

The Star Citizen of the science community.

 

[JohnDeL]

some quick websearching hasn't yielded much other than reddit crap,
and so I'm very seriously wondering about
the multiple comments over the years about how
once JWST is on station its "unmaintainable/unserviceable"

This is, presumably, by design given that HST was built to be deployed by shuttle,
and periodically visited by shuttle, and no one figured that a spacecraft capable
of getting to the Lagrange point would exist to go service JWST.

With new spaceflight capabilities coming online (Starship, even Orion if we want to believe
that SLS flies more than once) is JWST still "doomed" if the insanely complex,
nearly 200 step deployment process fails?

The obvious caveats that come to mind:
* money to fly "tbd" spacecraft to JWST at the lagrange point
* money to train astronauts to do whatever servicing is required
* money and time to develop whatever repair tools, systems are needed
* TBD spacecraft being able to station keep with JWST? (presumably no Canadarm grapple fixture anywhere on JWST
* spacecraft needs an airlock for cycling while repair crew goes in and out
* rad hardening for 'tbd' spacecraft, EVA suits because in 'deep space'

That's the first order list that comes to mind: but I still ask the question because
for the stake of just how much $$$ was spent on JWST, if deploy step
154 fails, and all the remote troubleshooting fails, does it really
just get thrown away ? ( sunk cost fallacy enters the rambling here too I suppose)


Does a, say, $150M repair mission to get the multi-billion dollar JWST back online
come into the conversation?

The JWST has parts that are glued together. There is simply no way to unglue them in orbit.

If it fails to work, it fails to work, and we've just flushed billions down the drain while keeping other, equally important astronomy programs on hold for this debacle.

If it works, then much will be forgiven. But NASA has already been forced to change the way it manages projects as a result of this program.

If the oopsie with Hubble had not happened, maybe JWST would not have been picked over so thoroughly. On the other hand, the Hubble blurred vision problem might have been a blessing since there is no way to go out to the JWST and fix any problems.

I have the feeling they could have screwed up and built a fixed version a few times over now. Sometimes this extreme caution and over-engineering is more expensive than “git ’er done”. (See: SLS vs SpaceX.)

That has been one of the more consistent complaints about the JWST program. NASA could have flown prototypes of the various systems in LEO and even gotten some useful IR data from them along with learning how best to deploy sunshields in microgravity, all for less than the current bloated mess cost.

Instead, they kept insisting that they didn't need no prototypes and spent much more on ensuring that the rig would work.

There is a reason that many astronomers refer to JWST as "The Telescope That Ate Astronomy"

Of course you could have also very easily heavily exceeded. the budget of the current telescope. Things like what SpaceX is doing works a lot better when you're not developing something fundamentally new.

The only new part of the JWST is the folding sun shade. Everything else has already been tested in space.

What many people forget is that the JWST isn't the first IR space telescope we've launched; it is the seventh. And other space-based IR telescopes have operated at the wavelengths that the JWST will.

The only unique things about the JWST are the location and the use of a sunshield to allow exceptional sensitivity.

Given my understanding of the solar shade there is no way to handle that besides being extremely careful prior to launch. The big challenge is that all the folding has to be done correctly for it not to get damaged during launch and to deploy correctly.

Right. And we could have tested that process using a couple of $200 million ATLAS launches and still been ahead of the curve. Instead, we've committed to launching what is essentially a prototype and crossing our fingers.

 

[ranthog]

some quick websearching hasn't yielded much other than reddit crap,
and so I'm very seriously wondering about
the multiple comments over the years about how
once JWST is on station its "unmaintainable/unserviceable"

This is, presumably, by design given that HST was built to be deployed by shuttle,
and periodically visited by shuttle, and no one figured that a spacecraft capable
of getting to the Lagrange point would exist to go service JWST.

With new spaceflight capabilities coming online (Starship, even Orion if we want to believe
that SLS flies more than once) is JWST still "doomed" if the insanely complex,
nearly 200 step deployment process fails?

The obvious caveats that come to mind:
* money to fly "tbd" spacecraft to JWST at the lagrange point
* money to train astronauts to do whatever servicing is required
* money and time to develop whatever repair tools, systems are needed
* TBD spacecraft being able to station keep with JWST? (presumably no Canadarm grapple fixture anywhere on JWST
* spacecraft needs an airlock for cycling while repair crew goes in and out
* rad hardening for 'tbd' spacecraft, EVA suits because in 'deep space'

That's the first order list that comes to mind: but I still ask the question because
for the stake of just how much $$$ was spent on JWST, if deploy step
154 fails, and all the remote troubleshooting fails, does it really
just get thrown away ? ( sunk cost fallacy enters the rambling here too I suppose)


Does a, say, $150M repair mission to get the multi-billion dollar JWST back online
come into the conversation?

Besides the fact that the telescope is orbiting around the Earth-Moon L2 point, the telescope's sun shade also probably creates a massive problem for any service mission.

Orion probably can't service it without a module to provide further services like the orbiter's robotic arm did.

It is possible that with future capabilities we develop a repair mission for JWST, or its possible that we just replace it with a more capable telescope. After all we did a lot of repairs to the HST that it wasn't designed for.

 

[Imbrium]

If they are that concerned about piracy, why not send a couple of destroyers and frigates along to escort it? I mean, that's seriously a cheaper alternative to possible piracy/damage/destruction, and even more so could be a useful exercise/training for the vessels as well as real, serious protection.

I agree. Isn't protecting important American assets at sea one of the main reasons to have a navy?

Wrong. The main purpose of the Navy is force projection.

The main purpose of a navy is to protect a nation's shipping, while also posing a threat to enemy shipping in time of war. Projecting power is useless if your nation is starving because the ships bringing in the food are lying on the bottom of the ocean. Ask England about that.

The US doesn't need to import food, neither did Spain, France or Germany when they had huge navies.

Using WW1 and WW2 after the UK's 19th century population boom when it went from 10.5 to 37.8 and the UK needed to start importing to feed itself is a poor example since for most of the 19th century and before the UK did not need to import food it was resources for the factories that where imported.

I was using food as an example of resources that a nation's shipping brings in or exports. We may not import food, but we certainly export it. We also import a tremendous amount and range of resources and products. Without a navy to protect that incoming and outgoing trade, force projection doesn't happen.

 

[ranthog]

some quick websearching hasn't yielded much other than reddit crap,
and so I'm very seriously wondering about
the multiple comments over the years about how
once JWST is on station its "unmaintainable/unserviceable"

This is, presumably, by design given that HST was built to be deployed by shuttle,
and periodically visited by shuttle, and no one figured that a spacecraft capable
of getting to the Lagrange point would exist to go service JWST.

With new spaceflight capabilities coming online (Starship, even Orion if we want to believe
that SLS flies more than once) is JWST still "doomed" if the insanely complex,
nearly 200 step deployment process fails?

The obvious caveats that come to mind:
* money to fly "tbd" spacecraft to JWST at the lagrange point
* money to train astronauts to do whatever servicing is required
* money and time to develop whatever repair tools, systems are needed
* TBD spacecraft being able to station keep with JWST? (presumably no Canadarm grapple fixture anywhere on JWST
* spacecraft needs an airlock for cycling while repair crew goes in and out
* rad hardening for 'tbd' spacecraft, EVA suits because in 'deep space'

That's the first order list that comes to mind: but I still ask the question because
for the stake of just how much $$$ was spent on JWST, if deploy step
154 fails, and all the remote troubleshooting fails, does it really
just get thrown away ? ( sunk cost fallacy enters the rambling here too I suppose)


Does a, say, $150M repair mission to get the multi-billion dollar JWST back online
come into the conversation?

The JWST has parts that are glued together. There is simply no way to unglue them in orbit.

If it fails to work, it fails to work, and we've just flushed billions down the drain while keeping other, equally important astronomy programs on hold for this debacle.

If it works, then much will be forgiven. But NASA has already been forced to change the way it manages projects as a result of this program.

If the oopsie with Hubble had not happened, maybe JWST would not have been picked over so thoroughly. On the other hand, the Hubble blurred vision problem might have been a blessing since there is no way to go out to the JWST and fix any problems.

I have the feeling they could have screwed up and built a fixed version a few times over now. Sometimes this extreme caution and over-engineering is more expensive than “git ’er done”. (See: SLS vs SpaceX.)

That has been one of the more consistent complaints about the JWST program. NASA could have flown prototypes of the various systems in LEO and even gotten some useful IR data from them along with learning how best to deploy sunshields in microgravity, all for less than the current bloated mess cost.

Instead, they kept insisting that they didn't need no prototypes and spent much more on ensuring that the rig would work.

There is a reason that many astronomers refer to JWST as "The Telescope That Ate Astronomy"

Of course you could have also very easily heavily exceeded. the budget of the current telescope. Things like what SpaceX is doing works a lot better when you're not developing something fundamentally new.

The only new part of the JWST is the folding sun shade. Everything else has already been tested in space.

What many people forget is that the JWST isn't the first IR space telescope we've launched; it is the seventh. And other space-based IR telescopes have operated at the wavelengths that the JWST will.

The only unique things about the JWST are the location and the use of a sunshield to allow exceptional sensitivity.

Given my understanding of the solar shade there is no way to handle that besides being extremely careful prior to launch. The big challenge is that all the folding has to be done correctly for it not to get damaged during launch and to deploy correctly.

Right. And we could have tested that process using a couple of $200 million ATLAS launches and still been ahead of the curve. Instead, we've committed to launching what is essentially a prototype and crossing our fingers.

Would we be ahead of the curve? It really depends on whether or not we can sufficiently test the design on earth. If the earth based testing is sufficient, then the orbital test probably isn't necessary.

That testing could have easily just just cost us $200 million and delayed the launch a couple years. On top of that it might not really have significantly increased our certainty the design would work.

I suspect this is a design that the success relies on properly manufacturing and packaging the shade, rather than the design itself. The design seems a lot easier to verify than the actual build and package process. The challenge comes from the number of parts involved.

 

[Wickwick]

At least the next one can skip the "unfold the mirror" step if it fits through the starship door.
Reuse the mirror tiles, put more of them, remove part of the fragile moving parts...

We learnt enough with this prototype, can we order 4 or 6 of the cost-reduced version ?

That was the original claim with the JWST - "We learned so much from Hubble that this will only cost $500 million instead of $4,000 million". And look how that turned out...

Besides "being in space", there isn't anything I can think of that's common between the two final products. Even the bolts and materials are probably different.
The next gen, though, can reuse segmented mirrors and the general "not a repurposed spy sat designed to fit in the Shuttle" shape ...
Just kidding, they will find ways to make it completely different again.

What bolts? To save space, JWST is gluing everything!

Ok, I don't know if they're gluing everything. But they are using epoxy quite liberally as a mass-saving measure. Actually, I seem to recall there was some concern there were some random screws left inside the telescope that nobody could find so I guess they're not gluing everything.

Yes, I wish the last bit was a joke.

 

[Wickwick]

My local CVS is practically begging people to come in for shots. How about NASA buy enough stock to vaccinate everyone at the launch facility and their families?

That's a good point. Divert a few 10s of thousands of doses for the launch site and local area. You've got enough time, assuming you get started _now_. Or even just the J&J, one and done.

I can just imagine how that will go down politically. If you're going to try to get the launch facility's staff and families vaccinated, you'd better be providing enough vaccine for a large campaign of vaccinations.

The country of Guiana has a population of less than 300,000 so it should not be a problem for the US to provide some surplus vaccine (2x).

And medical staff to administer it (that speaks the local languages), and the logistics and infrastructure to get those vaccines to remote regions ...

The difficulty in many poorer nations with vaccination efforts are not just lack of vaccine, there are underlying weaknesses in the medical systems

You do realize the rocket launches from France, right? Not just a French colony. French soil proper.

 

[JustUsul]

Other instrument projects I'm involved in have essentially lost an entire year due to COVID as we've had to implement strict safety protocols that limit access to labs and personnel. Hats off to the JWST integration team working at Northrop (which includes personnel from multiple space agencies and aerospace corporations living away from home) who have basically kept to their Oct 31 schedule while having to deal with COVID in Los Angeles.

 

[Wickwick]

some quick websearching hasn't yielded much other than reddit crap,
and so I'm very seriously wondering about
the multiple comments over the years about how
once JWST is on station its "unmaintainable/unserviceable"

This is, presumably, by design given that HST was built to be deployed by shuttle,
and periodically visited by shuttle, and no one figured that a spacecraft capable
of getting to the Lagrange point would exist to go service JWST.

With new spaceflight capabilities coming online (Starship, even Orion if we want to believe
that SLS flies more than once) is JWST still "doomed" if the insanely complex,
nearly 200 step deployment process fails?

The obvious caveats that come to mind:
* money to fly "tbd" spacecraft to JWST at the lagrange point
* money to train astronauts to do whatever servicing is required
* money and time to develop whatever repair tools, systems are needed
* TBD spacecraft being able to station keep with JWST? (presumably no Canadarm grapple fixture anywhere on JWST
* spacecraft needs an airlock for cycling while repair crew goes in and out
* rad hardening for 'tbd' spacecraft, EVA suits because in 'deep space'

That's the first order list that comes to mind: but I still ask the question because
for the stake of just how much $$$ was spent on JWST, if deploy step
154 fails, and all the remote troubleshooting fails, does it really
just get thrown away ? ( sunk cost fallacy enters the rambling here too I suppose)


Does a, say, $150M repair mission to get the multi-billion dollar JWST back online
come into the conversation?

Servicing a spacecraft not meant to be serviced is going to be quite challenging even if you can get there. You've almost guaranteed that you'll need a manned mission. That would be quite a mission. Cheaper to send a new telescope designed for the new rockets.

 

[WilhelmC]

The Ariane 5 is one of the most proven and reliable launch systems ever devised, but given the history of the James Webb Space Telescope I'm firmly in the camp of "check everything, check it again, then hire someone else to check it a third time... and maaaaybe just check it again after that".

Because the JWST is pretty much cursed, and everything that CAN go wrong WILL go wrong, so best make sure that NOTHING can go wrong. No tempting fate.

There's an argument in industry at least that TOO much inspection becomes counter productive.

I worked in nucleic diagnostics company and wrote a short memo on the dangers of testing to failure. If each assay cycle has a 3% of being wrong for unknown reasons (not unusual in early nucleic acid diagnostics) and the manufacturing process has many steps where the raw materials, solutions, components, and assembled kit are each assayed using the final protocol, then there is a high probability that there will be some out of range result even if the reagents are fine. Testing strategies with repeat testing of components that initially failed only partially compensated for this. The solution as Demming pointed out is to design a manufacturing process where the probability of failure for any one solution and component is very rare and test only the final kit for release and statistical analysis.

 

[ColdWetDog]

Piracy? For something this expensive can't we get an escort??

If it costs $6.5 million per day for a carrier group (https://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/wp-c ... roups2.pdf), and the telescope is already a $10 billion dollar effort, just send an entire carrier group to protect it. Relatively speaking, the cost is trivial.

You don't need a carrier group. The Russians aren't going to try to steal it. They're just worried about some rando weirdo group talking the thing for ransom. A medium CG cutter with a 2 inch deck gun and a radio would be more than sufficient.

General reply to all similar comments: of course you don't need a carrier group; my somewhat tounge-in-cheek post was pointing out that there is no possible cost objection to providing a naval escort relative to the overall cost of the JWST project. "Piracy" should not be an issue with shipping it wherever it needs to go.

OTOH, a carrier battle group would be a fiscally consistent response.

 

[Wickwick]

My local CVS is practically begging people to come in for shots. How about NASA buy enough stock to vaccinate everyone at the launch facility and their families?

Why doesn’t the EU do it? It’s their spaceport after all.

Because we don't want to have to wait until France has vaccinated everyone perhaps? NASA can probably acquire 20k doses of vaccines from the federal government faster than France will get to the launch personnel.

 

[hecksagon]

If they are that concerned about piracy, why not send a couple of destroyers and frigates along to escort it? I mean, that's seriously a cheaper alternative to possible piracy/damage/destruction, and even more so could be a useful exercise/training for the vessels as well as real, serious protection.

Almost certainly availability is an issue. Typically 1/3 of ships are laid up at any given time for overhauls. In the end a couple billion dollars isn't really worth a US destroyers time since they are typically deployed to areas with potential economic impacts in the hundreds of billions.

This does seem like a perfect mission for one of the larger coast guard cutters.

 

[ColdWetDog]

some quick websearching hasn't yielded much other than reddit crap,
and so I'm very seriously wondering about
the multiple comments over the years about how
once JWST is on station its "unmaintainable/unserviceable"

This is, presumably, by design given that HST was built to be deployed by shuttle,
and periodically visited by shuttle, and no one figured that a spacecraft capable
of getting to the Lagrange point would exist to go service JWST.

With new spaceflight capabilities coming online (Starship, even Orion if we want to believe
that SLS flies more than once) is JWST still "doomed" if the insanely complex,
nearly 200 step deployment process fails?

The obvious caveats that come to mind:
* money to fly "tbd" spacecraft to JWST at the lagrange point
* money to train astronauts to do whatever servicing is required
* money and time to develop whatever repair tools, systems are needed
* TBD spacecraft being able to station keep with JWST? (presumably no Canadarm grapple fixture anywhere on JWST
* spacecraft needs an airlock for cycling while repair crew goes in and out
* rad hardening for 'tbd' spacecraft, EVA suits because in 'deep space'

That's the first order list that comes to mind: but I still ask the question because
for the stake of just how much $$$ was spent on JWST, if deploy step
154 fails, and all the remote troubleshooting fails, does it really
just get thrown away ? ( sunk cost fallacy enters the rambling here too I suppose)


Does a, say, $150M repair mission to get the multi-billion dollar JWST back online
come into the conversation?

No one was saying that it was a theoretical impossibility to repair the JWST. Just a practical one. Sure, you could create a special Starship equipped to do EVA at a LaGrange point but it isn't anything you can plan on.

I mean, once we get an Epstein Drive we can all sorts of impossible things.

 

[Drizzt321]

If they are that concerned about piracy, why not send a couple of destroyers and frigates along to escort it? I mean, that's seriously a cheaper alternative to possible piracy/damage/destruction, and even more so could be a useful exercise/training for the vessels as well as real, serious protection.

Almost certainly availability is an issue. Typically 1/3 of ships are laid up at any given time for overhauls. In the end a couple billion dollars isn't really worth a US destroyers time since they are typically deployed to areas with potential economic impacts in the hundreds of billions.

This does seem like a perfect mission for one of the larger coast guard cutters.

Forgot it was going through the Caribbean, so yeah, a large cutter or two would be just dandy.

 

[JohnDeL]

some quick websearching hasn't yielded much other than reddit crap,
and so I'm very seriously wondering about
the multiple comments over the years about how
once JWST is on station its "unmaintainable/unserviceable"

This is, presumably, by design given that HST was built to be deployed by shuttle,
and periodically visited by shuttle, and no one figured that a spacecraft capable
of getting to the Lagrange point would exist to go service JWST.

With new spaceflight capabilities coming online (Starship, even Orion if we want to believe
that SLS flies more than once) is JWST still "doomed" if the insanely complex,
nearly 200 step deployment process fails?

The obvious caveats that come to mind:
* money to fly "tbd" spacecraft to JWST at the lagrange point
* money to train astronauts to do whatever servicing is required
* money and time to develop whatever repair tools, systems are needed
* TBD spacecraft being able to station keep with JWST? (presumably no Canadarm grapple fixture anywhere on JWST
* spacecraft needs an airlock for cycling while repair crew goes in and out
* rad hardening for 'tbd' spacecraft, EVA suits because in 'deep space'

That's the first order list that comes to mind: but I still ask the question because
for the stake of just how much $$$ was spent on JWST, if deploy step
154 fails, and all the remote troubleshooting fails, does it really
just get thrown away ? ( sunk cost fallacy enters the rambling here too I suppose)


Does a, say, $150M repair mission to get the multi-billion dollar JWST back online
come into the conversation?

The JWST has parts that are glued together. There is simply no way to unglue them in orbit.

If it fails to work, it fails to work, and we've just flushed billions down the drain while keeping other, equally important astronomy programs on hold for this debacle.

If it works, then much will be forgiven. But NASA has already been forced to change the way it manages projects as a result of this program.

If the oopsie with Hubble had not happened, maybe JWST would not have been picked over so thoroughly. On the other hand, the Hubble blurred vision problem might have been a blessing since there is no way to go out to the JWST and fix any problems.

I have the feeling they could have screwed up and built a fixed version a few times over now. Sometimes this extreme caution and over-engineering is more expensive than “git ’er done”. (See: SLS vs SpaceX.)

That has been one of the more consistent complaints about the JWST program. NASA could have flown prototypes of the various systems in LEO and even gotten some useful IR data from them along with learning how best to deploy sunshields in microgravity, all for less than the current bloated mess cost.

Instead, they kept insisting that they didn't need no prototypes and spent much more on ensuring that the rig would work.

There is a reason that many astronomers refer to JWST as "The Telescope That Ate Astronomy"

Of course you could have also very easily heavily exceeded. the budget of the current telescope. Things like what SpaceX is doing works a lot better when you're not developing something fundamentally new.

The only new part of the JWST is the folding sun shade. Everything else has already been tested in space.

What many people forget is that the JWST isn't the first IR space telescope we've launched; it is the seventh. And other space-based IR telescopes have operated at the wavelengths that the JWST will.

The only unique things about the JWST are the location and the use of a sunshield to allow exceptional sensitivity.

Given my understanding of the solar shade there is no way to handle that besides being extremely careful prior to launch. The big challenge is that all the folding has to be done correctly for it not to get damaged during launch and to deploy correctly.

Right. And we could have tested that process using a couple of $200 million ATLAS launches and still been ahead of the curve. Instead, we've committed to launching what is essentially a prototype and crossing our fingers.

Would we be ahead of the curve? It really depends on whether or not we can sufficiently test the design on earth. If the earth based testing is sufficient, then the orbital test probably isn't necessary.

That is exactly the problem. We don't know if we can sufficiently test the design on Earth! We won't find out if the testing was sufficient until after the JWST launches and either works or doesn't.

Which means that a $200 million test is insurance that we could have and should have had but don't. If it had shown no problem with the design, then we would have been more confident in the launch, letting us spend less money on the design and redesign phase. If it had shown a problem with the design or given uncertain results, then it would have told us that we needed to redesign the sunshade. Either way, it would have given us useful data and improved the odds of a success.

As it is, we're stuck wishing and hoping. And that's no way to run a space program.

 

[ColdWetDog]

If they are that concerned about piracy, why not send a couple of destroyers and frigates along to escort it? I mean, that's seriously a cheaper alternative to possible piracy/damage/destruction, and even more so could be a useful exercise/training for the vessels as well as real, serious protection.

Almost certainly availability is an issue. Typically 1/3 of ships are laid up at any given time for overhauls. In the end a couple billion dollars isn't really worth a US destroyers time since they are typically deployed to areas with potential economic impacts in the hundreds of billions.

This does seem like a perfect mission for one of the larger coast guard cutters.

Forgot it was going through the Caribbean, so yeah, a large cutter or two would be just dandy.

They have a number of vessels that would be perfectly cromulent.

 

[Christopher James Huff]

If the oopsie with Hubble had not happened, maybe JWST would not have been picked over so thoroughly. On the other hand, the Hubble blurred vision problem might have been a blessing since there is no way to go out to the JWST and fix any problems.

I have the feeling they could have screwed up and built a fixed version a few times over now. Sometimes this extreme caution and over-engineering is more expensive than “git ’er done”. (See: SLS vs SpaceX.)

That has been one of the more consistent complaints about the JWST program. NASA could have flown prototypes of the various systems in LEO and even gotten some useful IR data from them along with learning how best to deploy sunshields in microgravity, all for less than the current bloated mess cost.

Instead, they kept insisting that they didn't need no prototypes and spent much more on ensuring that the rig would work.

There is a reason that many astronomers refer to JWST as "The Telescope That Ate Astronomy"

Of course you could have also very easily heavily exceeded. the budget of the current telescope. Things like what SpaceX is doing works a lot better when you're not developing something fundamentally new.

Given my understanding of the solar shade there is no way to handle that besides being extremely careful prior to launch. The big challenge is that all the folding has to be done correctly for it not to get damaged during launch and to deploy correctly.

What SpaceX is doing involves a great deal that's fundamentally new, and is how the early exploratory work in rocketry is done. It excels at dealing with new problems that you don't initially know how to solve.

There's nothing about shielding against sunlight that innately requires a complex self-deploying structure that's on the verge of tearing itself apart. If we'd launched smaller telescopes with similar shades, we would have had a better idea of what would be required and we'd never have even tried to fit that functionality in that volume/mass allocation.

 

[ColdWetDog]

That is exactly the problem. We don't know if we can sufficiently test the design on Earth! We won't find out if the testing was sufficient until after the JWST launches and either works or doesn't.

Which means that a $200 million test is insurance that we could have and should have had but don't. If it had shown no problem with the design, then we would have been more confident in the launch, letting us spend less money on the design and redesign phase. If it had shown a problem with the design or given uncertain results, then it would have told us that we needed to redesign the sunshade. Either way, it would have given us useful data and improved the odds of a success.

As it is, we're stuck wishing and hoping. And that's no way to run a space program.

I'm quite sure we've learned a number of lessons that we will definitely not apply to the next similar project.

 

[llanitedave]

If they are that concerned about piracy, why not send a couple of destroyers and frigates along to escort it? I mean, that's seriously a cheaper alternative to possible piracy/damage/destruction, and even more so could be a useful exercise/training for the vessels as well as real, serious protection.

I agree. Isn't protecting important American assets at sea one of the main reasons to have a navy?

Wrong. The main purpose of the Navy is force projection.

The main purpose of a navy is to protect a nation's shipping, while also posing a threat to enemy shipping in time of war. Projecting power is useless if your nation is starving because the ships bringing in the food are lying on the bottom of the ocean. Ask England about that.

Exactly. If you don't protect your shipping, you have no power to project.

It wasn't the destruction of Japan's warships during WWII that brought it to economic ruin, it was the sinking of its unprotected merchant fleet.

 

[panckage]

https://xkcd.com/2014/

I still maintain that dashed line is plotting an asymptote and not an intercept.

Or that the intersection is actually undefined. Ie. good old y=x( (x-2026)/(x-2026) ) trick.

 

[ip_what]

If they are that concerned about piracy, why not send a couple of destroyers and frigates along to escort it? I mean, that's seriously a cheaper alternative to possible piracy/damage/destruction, and even more so could be a useful exercise/training for the vessels as well as real, serious protection.

Also, this would make a great heist movie. Or maybe a James Bond flick?

 

[MMarsh]

My local CVS is practically begging people to come in for shots. How about NASA buy enough stock to vaccinate everyone at the launch facility and their families?

That's a good point. Divert a few 10s of thousands of doses for the launch site and local area. You've got enough time, assuming you get started _now_. Or even just the J&J, one and done.

The whole of French Guiana is only 294,000 people. You could first-dose vaccinate the entire territory in a month with 40 nurses, 40 support staff, and three shipments. Outside of the spaceport, it's poor and has few industries, hence why it's been left behind.

 

[Westerlund]

I’m part of a team that has JWST Cycle 1 time allocated, and launch and (especially) deployment will be a nervous time. It will be a spectacular and unmatched capability if everything goes to plan, and hopefully we will get to spend many years enjoying the science it produces, but I’ve always felt a bit uncomfortable about the risk/reward balance on this mission - so much needs to go right.

 

[WilhelmC]

My local CVS is practically begging people to come in for shots. How about NASA buy enough stock to vaccinate everyone at the launch facility and their families?

Why doesn’t the EU do it? It’s their spaceport after all.

The EU can't even vaccinate itself (plus France is one of the most anti-vax western nations in the world).

And yet France is currently delivering around 450,000 doses per day which amounts to 0.7 doses per 100 citizens per day. This compares to the USA rate of about 1.4 million doses a day or 0.4 doses per 100 citizens per day. Both countries are on a declining curve of doses per day but France's curve is about weeks behind that of the USA. It peaked about May 24 while the US curve peaked about 5 weeks earlier. The data suggest that France is moving well in their delayed vaccination program

 

[Drizzt321]

If they are that concerned about piracy, why not send a couple of destroyers and frigates along to escort it? I mean, that's seriously a cheaper alternative to possible piracy/damage/destruction, and even more so could be a useful exercise/training for the vessels as well as real, serious protection.

Also, this would make a great heist movie. Or maybe a James Bond flick?

James Bond. The villain is going to take that giant mirror and use it to re-focus a distributed laser satellite system powered by the sun to rain terror upon the Earth. Pay up or die!

 

[Printzer]

I think this would be a perfect opportunity to exercise Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 in the Caribbean.

Would give some good PR to the US government about working with NATO partner nations and would add some realism in training for the rest of the countries involved.

Would probably cut down on drug smuggling during that period as well, methinks.

 

[jhodge]

Piracy? For something this expensive can't we get an escort??

If it costs $6.5 million per day for a carrier group (https://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/wp-c ... roups2.pdf), and the telescope is already a $10 billion dollar effort, just send an entire carrier group to protect it. Relatively speaking, the cost is trivial.

You don't need a carrier group. The Russians aren't going to try to steal it. They're just worried about some rando weirdo group talking the thing for ransom. A medium CG cutter with a 2 inch deck gun and a radio would be more than sufficient.

General reply to all similar comments: of course you don't need a carrier group; my somewhat tounge-in-cheek post was pointing out that there is no possible cost objection to providing a naval escort relative to the overall cost of the JWST project. "Piracy" should not be an issue with shipping it wherever it needs to go.

OTOH, a carrier battle group would be a fiscally consistent response.

Only if we launch the carrier to escort the JWST all the way to its final orbit!

 

[shawnce]

I’m part of a team that has JWST Cycle 1 time allocated, and launch and (especially) deployment will be a nervous time. It will be a spectacular and unmatched capability if everything goes to plan, and hopefully we will get to spend many years enjoying the science it produces, but I’ve always felt a bit uncomfortable about the risk/reward balance on this mission - so much needs to go right.

I have no direct skin in the game (other then taxes) and I am frankly too nervous to watch the launch or deployment... I know many many scientist and engineers have a lot riding on it and can't stand to think that it won't work.

 

[fcrary]

https://xkcd.com/2014/

Funny thing about 2026 launch is that it would potentially be nice and even 30 YEARS since the start of the project. Even now, there might someone born in 1971, joined NASA after finishing their PhD in 1996, got assigned to NGST at the inception, has spent their entire career on it and will be 50 years old at launch, provided it actually goes up this year.

You can retail all those nice round numbers, if JWST launches in 2021and operated until the end of it's design lifetime. Which is five years, or 2026 assuming a 2021 launch. That would make the project thirty years old and your hypothetical astronomer fifty years old at end of operations, as opposed to at launch. (Although the goal is to operate JWST for ten years, i.e. five beyond the design lifetime.)

 

[fcrary]

If they are that concerned about piracy, why not send a couple of destroyers and frigates along to escort it? I mean, that's seriously a cheaper alternative to possible piracy/damage/destruction, and even more so could be a useful exercise/training for the vessels as well as real, serious protection.

And then upon arrival, there is the French Foreign Legion exercising in the tropical forests!

Actually, they probably would be anyway. The 3^e Régiment étranger d'infanterie of the French Foreign Legion is based in Kourou, French Guiana (the location of the launch complex.) Security for the launch complex is one of their main responsibilities.

 

[stevecrox]

I can't help but feel that system engineering has lead Nasa astray.

If your plan is a giant reflextive mirror, you have a couple of test telescopes you could have launched as intermediary steps. Atlas has been available for this time and things like the reflective tiles or heat shield are things crying out to be tested in space.

If instead of a flagship mission, Nasa had spun up a programme to deliver telescopes with increasing capability with a 10/20 year objective of reaching JWST. We would have gotten here faster and Nasa would have developed a department with real institutional memory.

With a 30 year project to deliver it is doubtful lessons from the project are really absorbed and from an engineering, technology or even process persoective they likely no longer apply.

But like with SLS it feels a great deal of time has been lost to paralysis by analysis, money spent on testing components in pure isolation and then running paper based excercises that sre only as good as your model and often not linked to the real world.

I get the value of system engineering, but the discipline doesn't seem to have evolved since the 1960's and as projects become increasingly complex the view is to entrench even more into requirements analysis or traceability matrix's.

 

[JohnCarter17]

Um, I was thinking naval escort too, but...

Why can't it be packed on a C-17 or something and flown down?

If it absorbs the Gs I think it does on launch why would a plane flight be out of the question?

If only NASA had an airplane they could use??

 

[Westerlund]

I have no direct skin in the game (other then taxes) and I am frankly too nervous to watch the launch or deployment... I know many many scientist and engineers have a lot riding on it and can stand to think that it won't work.

I was a graduate student when the CLUSTER mission was lost when the (I think first launch) of Ariane 5 failed after 37 seconds. We all watched it happen, as my university had a strong Solar / Terrestrial research group and many people had put years of work into the mission, and it was devastating afterwards. Even though CLUSTER II ultimately launched, some never really recovered.

So my heart goes out to anyone on the core JWST team. As an Astronomer, a launch failure would be sad for me, but for them it will be catastrophic - especially as the JWST mission has had so much criticism over the years - so I can’t really imagine what stress they’ll be under.

 

[fcrary]

At least the next one can skip the "unfold the mirror" step if it fits through the starship door.
Reuse the mirror tiles, put more of them, remove part of the fragile moving parts...

We learnt enough with this prototype, can we order 4 or 6 of the cost-reduced version ?

The unfolding the mirror part actually isn’t the hard part; the sun shield is far more challenging.

The general rule of thumb with projects at this scale is you can get two for 1.7x the cost of the first one. (See Mars rover recent mission costs, for instance). Economies of scale don’t really kick in dramatically until much higher build numbers. Much of the cost is in integration and test, not initial design, and that work simply gets twice as big almost-linearly if you’re building and testing two of something.

Not entirely. First, the recent Mars rovers (Curiosity and Perseverance) aren't identical. The payload is completely different, sample collection system is new, the software for driving on Mars was substantially rewritten, the EDL system was significantly modified for precision landing, etc. Perseverance had a usual phase A and B (design phase). They didn't cut straight to the preliminary design review and say, ``Or preliminary design is to copy the final design of Curiosity.'' And, according to NASA practices, once you modify a flight-proven system, it goes back down to technology readiness level 6 and all the testing has to be done all over again. In fact, I believe most of the cost difference was due to the extra costs when Curiosity's launch slipped by two years. If you really made a built to print copy of a spacecraft, the cost savings on the second item would be much more than you suggest.

 

[sapphir8]

Where's Superman when we need him? He could lift it to orbit.