James Webb Space Telescope, information, updates and discussion Options

[Redstone]

The manufacture of the JWST mirror blanks has now been completed.

Despite this milestone, the fate of JWST is still somewhat precarious, because although the scientific bang from the telescope is expected to be huge, the bucks required have increased to a staggering $4.5 billion. A Space.com article on the squeeze in NASA's space-based astronomy plans gives some background.

The JWST home page can be found here.

The Space Telescope Science Institute, which runs Hubble, also has a site here. As does ESA.

[Redstone]

Well, a 6.5m telescope is pretty big even on the ground. And the plan is to send it to L2, not LEO, so with no repair capability, it has to be REALLY well designed, with huge redundancy and margin etc. Plus, the thing weighs nearly seven tonnes.

A little more info at this New Scientist article.

Back in 2003, it was projected to cost $2.5 billion. I'll see if I can find some more info on what is driving up the cost.