James Webb Space Telescope will "absolutely" not launch in March:
On Wednesday, the chief of NASA's science programs said the James Webb Space Telescope will not meet its current schedule of launching in March 2021.
"We will not launch in March," said Thomas Zurbuchen, the space agency's associate administrator for science. "Absolutely we will not launch in March. That is not in the cards right now. That's not because they did anything wrong. It's not anyone's fault or mismanagement."
Zurbuchen made these comments at a virtual meeting of the National Academies' Space Studies Board. He said the telescope was already cutting it close on its schedule before the COVID-19 pandemic struck the agency and that the virus had led to additional lost work time.
"This team has stayed on its toes and pushed this telescope forward at the maximum speed possible," he said. "But we've lost time. Instead of two shifts fully staffed, we could not do that for all the reasons that we talk about. Not everybody was available. There were positive cases here and there. And so, perhaps, we had only one shift."
NASA and the telescope's prime contractor, Northrop Grumman, are evaluating the schedule going forward. This will include an estimate of when operations can completely return to normal—Zurbuchen said telescope preparation and testing activities are nearing full staffing again—and set a new date for a launch. This schedule review should conclude in July.
"I'm very optimistic about this thing getting off the launch pad in 2021," Zurbuchen said. "Of course, there is still a lot of mountain to climb."
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday June 12 2020, @01:46PM (1 child)
Would it be totally infeasible to use something like crew dragon to hook on to said satellite, provide a few repairs, and return to earth?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Friday June 12 2020, @10:01PM
It would need a robotic arm to grab on to it with; and it doesn't have an airlock, so they would have to depressurize the entire capsule. I am not sure if current EVA suits fit through the Crew Dragon hatch.
Maybe if Orion ever flies it will have this ability, as it will be bigger.
But, a better plan is to make future satellites compatible with MEV or some future robotic repair spacecraft. Make the satellite modular enough, and its a matter of swapping out comms arrays, computers, instruments, reaction wheels, etc.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh