James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

SpaceNut · 2005-10-07 06:05:40

Well it has taken over a month to go from the making of the glass to actually beginning to polish it.
Mirror Segment for James Webb Space Telescope Delivered for Polishing

Tinsley Laboratories in Richmond, Calif., will perform high-precision grinding, aspheric polishing and testing at ambient temperatures on the mirror segment, which is an engineering development unit. The mirrors will be polished to tolerances as tight as 20 nanometers, or less than one millionth of an inch.

Hope this company does a better job than what hubble recieved for they have 18 chances to get it wrong along the way.

At least there are some checks and balances top the process but why so long?

After initial polishing, the segments will be tested at roughly minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit (near absolute zero) in a cryogenic test chamber at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and returned to Tinsley for further refinement and polishing. The entire polishing process takes about two-and-a-half years.

When completed and launch to its home at an orbit about 940,000 miles from Earth at the L2 Lagrange point. They will use the infrared spectrum to peer back in time or to great distances to explore the creation of the early universe.

SpaceNut · 2005-11-03 11:41:03

Found note of cost overrun:
space.com/astronotes/astronotes.html

Shank noted at the Mars Society meeting that HST’s follow-on space scope -- the James Webb Space Telescope -- is over-budget big-time. “There’s a $1 billion cost overrun that we’re looking at,” he said.

Well have found that the cost overrun is blamed on rocket selection.
House committe document:

Earlier this year, NASA announced that the cost of the James Webb Space Telescope, the planned successor to the Hubble Space Telescope and one of NASA’s highest priority space science programs, would increase by approximately $1 billion to a total of $4.5 billion. NASA attributed the cost growth to higher-than-expected costs for integration and testing, cost increases for the instruments, and program delays because of uncertainty in the selection of a launch vehicle. The
cost overruns were especially surprising because they occurred at an early stage of the program.

SpaceNut · 2005-11-21 08:58:53

Cost over runs have caught up to the future launch of JWST.

NASA Delays JWST Launch by 2 Years To Stem Cost Growth

NASA plans to delay the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) nearly two years, to 2013, to cope with $1 billion in cost growth on the mission.
The launch slip "a compromise between what JWST needs and what money is available, especially during the next two fiscal years."
While the launch slip will help NASA avoid big cash infusions on the program in the near term, Geithner conceded it will not save money in the long term. In fact, he said, about half of the $1 billion in cost growth is now attributable to the two-year delay.

Talk about new math computations.....save by not spending now to only pay twice or three times as much later.

Meanwhile, NASA is awaiting U.S. State Department approval to conclude a formal agreement with the European Space Agency to launch the Webb telescope aboard an Ariane 5 rocket.

Who's to say that when it is time to launch JWST that the Ariane 5 rocket will even be in use....

Rxke · 2005-11-21 09:56:08

It will be. Arianespace usually keeps a variety of launchers, even if Ariane V would be outdated by then, it will still be in their portfolio. They still use older Arianes, today, depending on what the launch-mass is.

OTOH, alread $1b in cost growth, and it's still a long way to go untill 2013... I cringe when trying to guesstimate the eventual price-ticket...

Commodore · 2005-11-21 13:53:41

Someone want to explain why it cost a half billion dollars to store a satillite in a warehouse for 2 years?

It cost Paris Hilton less money to do absolutely nothing.

idiom · 2005-11-23 02:10:55

The warehouse is in really nice neighbourhood?

GCNRevenger · 2005-11-23 08:16:15

I think that we are seeing an overall trend or two here...

1: Incompetance, that people running large NASA programs just don't know what they're doing, and don't care about the cost burden since they know it will be paid since cancelation isn't an option.

2: Lies, that with budgets being especially tight, this is an incentive for program managers to get a piece of the pie any way they can. "Oh sure, we know exactly how much it will cost, with high certainty. No, launch vehicle selection won't be a problem at all." Etc etc.

SpaceNut · 2005-12-06 10:02:18

Ball Aerospace Accelerates Focusing Techniques on the James Webb Space Telescope

Ball Aerospace engineers, under contract to Northrop Grumman Space Technology, are now accelerating the development of an optical testbed that will simulate the focusing characteristics of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Scheduled to be completed by year-end, the one-sixth scale model of JWST's optical system is part of an effort to reduce risk in the program.

Would have thought that this would have already been done...

SpaceNut · 2005-12-07 09:10:25

[url=http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/pressReleases/2005/pressRelease20051206/]Top German Technology for Hubble’s Successor;
Carl Zeiss and Max Planck researchers develop technology for the world’s largest space telescope[/url]

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2006-03-07 22:39:05

What's Killing JWST
March 7, 2006

The primary reason JWST is having trouble is NPOESS (National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System). Much of JWST software and hardware development is tied to NPOESS. Some overruns in NPOESS have been fixed by moving the development of common or hardware and software from NPOESS to JWST, then back to NPOESS.
http://www.usspacenews.com/
This has had the effect of moving the overruns from one program to a second. JWST is considered harder to kill than NPOESS so better able to absorb the overrun. JWST is critical to understanding the universe. NPOESS should not be allowed to drag it down. Sources tell us NASA is considering cancelling JWST and restarting the mission in FY 2008-2009

see also
'The vision of the James Webb Space Telescope, the future successor to Hubble, should be dimmed to cut cost overruns', say the astronomers forming the telescope's Science Assessment Team.
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn7908
The JWST, set to launch no earlier than 2011, will primarily study infrared wavelengths. But it was also designed to probe shorter wavelengths, reaching down to 0.6 microns. That falls into the range of visible light and overlaps with the Hubble Space Telescope, which is likely to fail as early as 2007 unless it receives new gyroscopes and batteries.
But the JWST is already $1 billion over its budget and this week a panel of scientists recommended reducing the shorter wavelengths that Webb can readily see. The change would mean the telescope could see clearly down to wavelengths of about 1.7 microns, in the infrared band of the spectrum. But it would not be able to view the visible range down to 0.6 microns unless it spends 50% longer on its observations.

Cost cuts likely to dim space telescope’s vision

publiusr · 2006-03-08 15:09:33

I can see it now.

"Well, sir--Hubble de-orbited."

That's okay--who needs to repair anything anyway?

"Uh...sir"

What?

"Webb has only partially deployed--and we are getting no science from it---at all."

GCNRevenger · 2006-03-08 19:03:27

So thats' why JWST is so overpriced...

The need for a visible light space telescope is diminishing with the advent of adaptive optics telescopes on the ground.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2006-03-08 20:47:10

the advent of adaptive optics telescopes on the ground.

Adpative Optics are sooo over-hyped ever since those guys at Keck published that pretty Uranus picture

I do agree that ground based telescopes and adpative optics can take some great photos and do some very important science
but the problem is many of the anti-Space lobby are using the 'Adpative-Optics' excuse to keep us stuck on the ground.

Space telescopes are highly important, that's why Russia, NASA, the ESA, China and Japan all have had plans for observations and telescopes in space. However - Adaptive optics are totally over-sold and over-rated by ground based guys that say it is a magic tool or wrongly fear funding may taken away be put into space. Plus 'adapative optics' is not some magic wand, otherwise people wouldn't be lauching space telescopes and people wouln't be talking about saving Hubble.

The Space telescope will remain a very important part of science and go out in space for a long time to come. A ground scope can't look at one point in the sky for 30 hours straight. Telescopes on the ground have the Earth blocking much of their view and the night and day sequence dispurts viewing

Ground based scopes can't image the atmosphere of exo-planets..something that may be done by NASA's TPF and ESA's Darwin...
ground based adaptive optics can't do sqaut here we need a space mission for this.and some Apaptive Optics fans don't want to build a TPF or telescope on the Moon

Our atmosphere blocks much of the spectrum, we have a window in visible light, almost no real UV, a small window in infrared IR, and a big window Radio frequency
adaptive optics can't view a spectrum that is already invisble from Earth.
There are also issues of protection, vandalism, theft, terrorism and security to deal with on earth based observatories. Hurricane systems produce bad cloud over over the ground and bad weather plays a role, this is perhaps why scopes like Chandra XMM-Newton, Spitzer can do better work on missions like Deep impact.

Ground scopes can not probe 'Blind Spot' there could be many potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) out there but there is a notorious 'blind spot' that telescopes on Earth can never peer into.

EuroLauncher · 2006-03-22 09:40:35

US astronomy: Is the next big thing too big ?
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 … 0140a.html
So no one is denying that the JWST will be a first-rate telescope, perhaps even a revolutionary one. Just last August an independent assessment team charged by the project to review the telescope's science potential reported that "the scientific case for the JWST mission has become even stronger" since the Decadal Survey's endorsement in 2000. But what of its expense?

JWST Talking Points & a revised version
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2006/ … .html#more
JWST's current cost is appropriate for a 6.5-m space telescope. The year 2000 cost estimates for JWST (~$1B for an 8-m telescope) did not include technology development (around $230M), nor did they include work done at NASA centers (adds about ~20% to the cost under NASA's current accounting rules). Inflation to FY2006 dollars adds another 18%. JWST also incurred significant costs while the Ariane launch was debated in agencies external to NASA. With all these factors, JWST's cost estimate is now $3.5B from the first day through launch....Despite the desire of some in the community to point blame for space science financial stress at one or two particular science projects, the record is clear that NASA support for development of the new Crew Exploration Vehicle is almost entirely responsible. NASA agency budget growth in FY07 is 1% (removing Katrina repairs), but proposed growth in the CEV budget is 72%. The proposed budget removes $0.4B from science in FY07, and almost $2B of previously anticipated growth in science over the next 5 years.

SpaceNut · 2006-03-22 10:17:53

Thanks for the breakdown to the post I made back in May 26, 2005.

What concerns me is that putting this unit into a stand down hold pattern is going to further add to the cost.

GCNRevenger · 2006-03-22 10:34:41

"the record is clear that NASA support for development of the new Crew Exploration Vehicle is almost entirely responsible."

Says who, says Nasa Watch? Nonsense!

"The proposed budget removes $0.4B from science in FY07, and almost $2B of previously anticipated growth in science over the next 5 years."

Out of how much? How much should space science be getting? Whatever we were paying back in "go in circles for science" days might be totally different then in the context of "exploration first" NASA of today.

Just slapping up a big scarry number with no context is meaningless.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2006-03-23 09:55:20

What concerns me is that putting this unit into a stand down hold pattern is going to further add to the cost.

good point, I wonder how much extra this is going to add to the budget ?

publiusr · 2006-03-23 16:08:17

"the record is clear that NASA support for development of the new Crew Exploration Vehicle is almost entirely responsible."
Says who, says Nasa Watch? Nonsense!
"The proposed budget removes $0.4B from science in FY07, and almost $2B of previously anticipated growth in science over the next 5 years."
Out of how much? How much should space science be getting? Whatever we were paying back in "go in circles for science" days might be totally different then in the context of "exploration first" NASA of today.
Just slapping up a big scarry number with no context is meaningless.

Keith Cowing has a bad attitude that won't quit. He is an apologist for the life science mongers who would love to shut everything down besides Goddard Green Unabomber wannabes.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2006-04-06 13:23:40

Thanks for the breakdown to the post I made back in May 26, 2005.
What concerns me is that putting this unit into a stand down hold pattern is going to further add to the cost.

that could be

when such projects are slowed down it just adds to the long term cost

SpaceNut · 2006-05-15 16:22:39

Apparently things are not on hold, James Webb Space Telescope Sunshield Membrane Passes Critical Space-Readiness Tests

Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE:NOC) team successfully completed a series of stringent tests that proved a key element of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can function successfully in its planned space environment.
The tests were conducted on JWST's sunshield membrane, a five-layer structure approximately the size of a tennis court. The sunshield will block solar light and keep the observatory operating at cryogenic temperatures, enabling its infrared sensors to see distant galaxies, early stars, planetary systems and help astronomers better understand dark matter.

John Creighton · 2006-05-15 20:27:29

Apparently things are not on hold, James Webb Space Telescope Sunshield Membrane Passes Critical Space-Readiness Tests
Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE:NOC) team successfully completed a series of stringent tests that proved a key element of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can function successfully in its planned space environment.
The tests were conducted on JWST's sunshield membrane, a five-layer structure approximately the size of a tennis court. The sunshield will block solar light and keep the observatory operating at cryogenic temperatures, enabling its infrared sensors to see distant galaxies, early stars, planetary systems and help astronomers better understand dark matter.

Sounds very impressive. Dare I say it will put hubble to shame

publiusr · 2006-05-19 11:48:25

If it works. I think I'd settle for one more Hubble re-furbish, and call it quits. LVs should come first for a change.

SpaceNut · 2006-07-20 22:31:11

There have been a few articles with recent testing for the James Webb Space Telescope which some feel that it has been put on a Rush to build threatens Hubble successor being put at risk because of a rush to meet its 2013 launch. This was due to a $1 billion over its original $3.5 billion budget for the project.

Of course this is tempered by the announcement that Northrop Grumman/Ball Aerospace Team Completes Critical Vibro-Acoustic Tests on James Webb Space Telescope Primary Mirror

Some important details as to the testing that was done in the article...

SpaceNut · 2007-01-09 10:48:59

As Webb takes shape, NASA’s John Mather isn’t resting on his laurels; Nobel physicist focuses on Hubble’s heir

The telescope's mirror is seven times larger than Hubble's — so large that it has to be folded up for its launch on a European Ariane 5 rocket. The instruments have to be kept so cold that a shade the size of a tennis court will shield it from the sun's rays. And it's due to travel so far away — 1 million miles from Earth — that it will take at least two months to get there.
At that distance, the Webb telescope can hover around a gravitational balance point known as L2, providing a steady vantage point for observations.
The Webb telescope is slated for an operating life of five years — but that could be extended, just as the nearly 17-year-old Hubble's life has been repeatedly extended.

SpaceNut · 2007-02-10 11:33:32

Cullman company toils on telescope

Axsys Technologies Precision Machined Products on Jan. 30 shipped out the last of 18 hexagonal segments that will form the primary mirror of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope

New Mars Forums

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#26 2005-10-07 06:05:40

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#27 2005-11-03 11:41:03

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#28 2005-11-21 08:58:53

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#29 2005-11-21 09:56:08

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#30 2005-11-21 13:53:41

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#31 2005-11-23 02:10:55

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#32 2005-11-23 08:16:15

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#33 2005-12-06 10:02:18

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#34 2005-12-07 09:10:25

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#35 2006-03-07 22:39:05

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#36 2006-03-08 15:09:33

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#37 2006-03-08 19:03:27

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#38 2006-03-08 20:47:10

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#39 2006-03-22 09:40:35

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#40 2006-03-22 10:17:53

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#41 2006-03-22 10:34:41

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#42 2006-03-23 09:55:20

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#43 2006-03-23 16:08:17

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#44 2006-04-06 13:23:40

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#45 2006-05-15 16:22:39

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#46 2006-05-15 20:27:29

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#47 2006-05-19 11:48:25

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#48 2006-07-20 22:31:11

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#49 2007-01-09 10:48:59

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

#50 2007-02-10 11:33:32

Re: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - 6.5m mirror, L2 orbit

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