![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/james-web-space-telescope.jpg\")
<\/p>\nNASA has announced a further delay to the James Webb Space Telescope\u2019s launch. The agency had been targeting March-June 2019 for the much-heralded telescope\u2019s liftoff. But continued integration delays have forced the agency to push the launch back a full year to No Earlier Than May 2020. This slip is the second such delay in the last six months and follows a February 2018 Government Accountability Office report that called the March-June 2019 launch window \u201coptimistic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters via teleconference, NASA\u2019s Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot, Associate Administrator of the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Thomas Zurbuchen, and Deputy Associate Administrator of SMD Dennis Andrucyk provided an update on the ongoing schedule uncertainty for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) \u2013 the agency\u2019s much heralded follow-on observatory of the Hubble Space Telescope.<\/p>\n
\u201cWebb is the highest priority project for the agency\u2019s Science Mission Directorate, and the largest international space science project in U.S. history. All the observatory\u2019s flight hardware is now complete; however, the issues brought to light with the spacecraft element are prompting us to take the necessary steps to refocus our efforts on the completion of this ambitious and complex observatory,\u201d said Mr. Lightfoot.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope, set for launch NET May 2020. (Credit: NASA)<\/p>\n
Mr. Zurbuchen and Mr. Andrucyk added that testing of the telescope\u2019s hardware and spacecraft elements has demonstrated that these systems individually meet their requirements. However, recent findings this month from the project\u2019s Standing Review Board (SRB) indicate more time is needed to test and integrate these components together and perform environmental testing at Northrop Grumman.<\/p>\n
However, NASA did not elaborate on what the issues the SRB found were that led to a year long delay to the mission. Instead, the agency cited sunshield tears and improper propulsion system cleaning by Northrop Grumman as the primary causes leading to the delay and increase in daily oversight for NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate over Northrop Grumman.<\/p>\n
But both of those issues \u2013 sunshield tears and improper thruster cleaning \u2013 were known and discussed at length in last month\u2019s Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on James Webb, a report that said even with those known issues there was still 1.5 months of schedule reserve left to meet the March-June 2019 launch window.<\/p>\n
Regardless, the new year-long delay has prompted NASA to establish an external Independent Review Board (IRB) that will be chaired by Thomas Young. The IRB\u2019s findings, are expected to bolster confidence in NASA\u2019s approach to completing the final integration and test phase of the mission, the launch campaign, commissioning, as well as the entire deployment sequence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n