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.

[helvick]

My understanding is that it is going to remain for around six weeks so it almost certainly will not still be here, unfortunately. One of the local web sites said it would be here until July 19th which more or less matches up. I don't have any official information though, maybe Ollopa can be more definite.

It is scheduled to be displayed at the Rochester Museum & Science Center, in Rochester, New York starting on August the 26th so it will definitely have to be deconstructed at least 10 days before so that it can be shipped back across the Atlantic. I find it really amusing that it has to travel by ship - it's too big to fly.