Webb telescope cost rises to more than $8 billion

Last month the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations sent a clear message to NASA by eliminating funding for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in NASA’s spending bill. The warning: Avoid cost overruns on big missions or face cancellation. At the time, NASA staff members remained confident that the telescope would be in orbit by 2016. They argued that a reorganization of the management team would get JWST back on track.

On 16 August NASA confirmed reports by the BBC and Nature that the launch of JWST will be delayed until 2018, nearly five years past its initial launch date, and will cost an additional $1.5 billion, bringing its total bill to more than $8 billion. The cost increases are due to unexpected delays, additional personnel costs, and financial “padding” to deal with potential technical challenges.

The risk of cancellation is galvanizing astronomers. The American Astronomical Society has asked the astronomical community and the public to lobby Congress in favor of the telescope, and the New York Times published a letter signed by 32 Nobel laureates asking that JWST be funded.

There is some comfort for the space science community: NASA has reaffirmed that JWST is a priority and that the financial burden is to be spread across other NASA divisions, including human spaceflight. However, in the long term, many space science and exploration projects are still threatened by cost overruns and by the estimated $770 million spread over five years (under operating costs) instead of per year.

The next major financial milestone for JWST will occur when the spending bill reaches the Senate. Longtime analyst John Logsdon, of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, believes the House’s elimination of JWST funding is intended to be used as a “bargaining chip” during negotiations later this year during reconciliation of the House- and Senate-passed versions of the bill. The chief author of the House version, Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies. The chair of the Senate subcommittee, Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), is a staunch advocate of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, which manages the JWST project. The report language relating to JWST in the House bill, says Logsdon, indicates that Wolf proposed terminating the telescope only because of budgetary pressures.—Paul Guinnessy

Correction: This story was corrected on the 9/7/2011. The operating costs of JWST are $770 m over five years, not per year.