Owner
Posted 29 December 2021 - 03:58 PM
The Verge: NASA’S REVOLUTIONARY JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHES TO SPACE
Space.com: Where is NASA's James Webb Space Telescope? Here's how to follow its progress.
https://www.space.co...oyment-tracking
Space.com: James Webb Space Telescope: The scientific mysteries no other observatory could unravel
HOF
Posted 29 December 2021 - 04:15 PM
It'll be a technical marvel, but it's also a shining example of how not to manage a project. I guess it's only 14 years behind schedule and $9 Billion dollars over budget. So not that bad.
Owner
HOF
Posted 29 December 2021 - 04:19 PM
It'll be a technical marvel, but it's also a shining example of how not to manage a project. I guess it's only 14 years behind schedule and $9 Billion dollars over budget. So not that bad.
What are the biggest factors that contributed to that?
HOF
Posted 29 December 2021 - 04:19 PM
My brother-in-law is a flight controller for the project. He's a real smart kid but new to both the industry and the project within the past year. Within the last couple weeks they had to rapidly accelerate him to one of their launch test leads due to covid outbreaks reducing staffing.
Fortunately launch and early commissioning have gone very smoothly. I'm not sure they'd have been able to rapidly handle many contingencies and they had a very early burn post-separation to get heading towards their L1 orbit. And if there were problems that delayed the first big burn, they could eventually recover from that but the propellant cost would be much higher, meaning they'd have less remaining propellant for on-orbit stationkeeping, effectively reducing mission duration.
HOF
Posted 29 December 2021 - 04:25 PM
What are the biggest factors that contributed to that?
A significant portion of the delays and cost increases is a very simple increase in scope. It got bigger and more complex than originally proposed, all changes that are beneficial to the end product being more useful. So that's not really a problem or a mistake, they just decided to go bigger and badder.
But even after that, they're still way late and way over budget. I'm not on the systems side of things so couldn't give a really specific and intelligent answer. I'd guess that a big part is because of the size of the project, there are many different subcontractors and different corporations and institutions involved in building all the instrumentation and the bus. The more outside entities you rely on for a project, the more delays and cost overruns creep in. It basically reached "too big to fail" status. A smaller project would've been canceled along the way, but they had committed so much to this one that each time they needed just a little bit more, Congress basically had to say yes.
Owner
Posted 13 June 2022 - 02:36 PM
Balt Magazine: Baltimore Scientists Unveil the Universe with the James Webb Space Telescope
https://www.baltimor...7cdalIjXf9zxiPk
Owner
Posted 11 July 2022 - 06:31 PM
Space.com: Biden unveils James Webb Space Telescope's ultradeep view of the universe
https://www.space.co...rst-photo-biden
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