Is the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope worth the price tag?
- Reference: 1657965844
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/07/16/ames_webb_space_telescope/
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The first set of [1]images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope published this week revealed the birth and death of stars and merging galaxies in stunning full color.
Direct comparisons of the same objects taken by the aging Hubble Space Telescope [2]show just how much better the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, is at infrared wavelengths, with countless more dazzling stars and galaxies popping up into view.
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The goal of the James Webb effort was to build an observatory that could receive light from the deepest voids of space so scientists could peer back to a time when the first galaxies began to form. But the 'scope went through multiple redesigns since work began on it in 1990s, and it suffered numerous delays with valuable time spent fixing tears in its tennis court-sized sunshield and patching up hundreds of other points of potential failure.
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Work also had to be temporarily halted when space agencies ordered employees to stay at home during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. And don't forget the JWST also repeatedly missed its initial launch date due to vibrational issues and a faulty data cable. All the while costs for the telescope continued piling up.
It finally blasted off from Earth at the end of December, [6]arrived at its home a million miles away a month later, and [7]detected its first photons in February. Now it's beamed back photos of, among other things, galaxies as old as 13 billion years.
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And so, after a quarter of a century, or thereabouts, of work and a hefty $10 billion bill, what does the entire effort have to show?
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The Carina Nebula snapped by the JWST ... Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
Not only is the JWST providing humanity with the widest, deepest, and clearest view of the universe yet, it is operating at a level that has exceeded expectations. The telescope's scientific performance is better than scientists hoped, according to a [10]60-page report from NASA, ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency.
"The optics are better aligned, the point spread function is sharper with higher encircled energy, and the optical performance is more time-stable than requirements," scientists, who helped conduct a sixth-month review, gushed. "The fine guidance system points the observatory several times more accurately and precisely than required. The mirrors are cleaner than requirements, which translates into lower-than-expected levels of near-infrared stray light, meaning that the sky background will be darker for JWST than expected. The science instruments have generally higher total system throughput than pre-launch expectations."
These improvements mean the JWST has a wide-range of capabilities, including the potential to peer at different types of objects, from nebulae, galaxies with quasars, the hubbub of stars toward the center of the Milky Way, our own Solar System, and near-Earth asteroids. Scientists have already directed the telescope to take [11]infrared images of Jupiter and its moon, and have collected spectra from eight space rocks so far.
Enhanced optics capabilities have in turn boosted the overall performance of its instruments, too. The JWST has four main instruments packaged in the Integrated Science Instrument Module ( [12]ISIM ) that sits behind its primary gold-plated hexagonal mirror, including the Near-Infrared Camera, the Near-Infrared Spectrograph, the Mid-Infrared Instrument, and the Fine Guidance Sensor.
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"A key result of science instrument commissioning is that overall, the JWST science instruments have substantially better sensitivity than was predicted pre-launch. This result is due to higher science instrument throughput, sharper point spread functions, cleaner mirrors, and lower levels of near-infrared stray light background compared to pre-launch expectations," the report said.
[14]Behold: The first images snapped by the James Webb Space Telescope
[15]SpaceX Starship booster in flames after unexpected ignition
[16]ESA's 2030+ roadmap envisions Europeans on the Moon and Mars
The instruments have to be cooled to keep noise levels low. Sunlight is reflected off its sunshield and heat is carried away through radiators, the Mid-Infrared Instrument also has its own cryocooler that recycles helium. Scientists say that although JWST was loaded up with enough propellant to last at least 10.5 years, it could be stretched to 20 years, giving them more observation time.
The best time to gaze at the universe using the telescope, however, is sooner rather than later. The Solar System is filled with tiny, floating bits of rocky debris broken up from larger particles formed billions of years ago. These micrometeoroids can strike the telescope and damage its components. Six of these pesky flecks have hit the JWST so far, one particularly energetic event in May 2022 [17]caused "significant uncorrectable change" in the overall structure of one of the primary mirror's segments.
Fortunately, the imaging powers of the telescope weren't impacted too much after mission control made two small adjustments to the mirror alignment. Scientists estimate that the JWST will be pelted by micrometeoroids about once a month, meaning its mirrors will degrade over time. The actual rate of deterioration, however, is unknown.
"It is not yet clear whether the May 2022 hit was a rare event (ie, an unlucky early strike by a high kinetic energy micrometeoroid that statistically might occur only once in several years), or whether the telescope may be more susceptible to damage by micrometeoroids than pre-launch modeling predicted," the boffins noted.
The JWST team said it was looking at ways to mitigate impact risks and will continue to model how the space prangs might affect its beryllium mirrors. Official science observations have begun, and astronomers will have a long while yet to keep studying the universe at depths they have never been able to before.
"Already we have stood on the shoulders of giants like the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, and seen farther," John Mather, a senior project scientist for the JWST at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, [18]said in a statement. "We have seen distant galaxies, as they were when the universe was less than a billion years old, and we're just beginning the search. We have seen galaxies colliding and merging, revealing their chemical secrets."
"We have seen one black hole close up, in the nucleus of a nearby galaxy, and measured the material escaping from it. We've seen the debris when a star exploded, liberating the chemical elements that will build the next generations of stars and planets. We have started a search for Earth 2.0, by watching a planet transiting in front of its star, and measuring the molecules in its atmosphere.
"We know the Webb images will rewrite our textbooks, and we hope for a new discovery, something so important that our view of the universe will be overturned once again." ®
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/13/james_webb_space_telescope_images/
[2] https://www.webbcompare.com/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YtLgn2M9JRIhqPhHEQMwkQAAANU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YtLgn2M9JRIhqPhHEQMwkQAAANU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YtLgn2M9JRIhqPhHEQMwkQAAANU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/25/james_webb_space_telescope/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/05/jwst_photon/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YtLgn2M9JRIhqPhHEQMwkQAAANU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://regmedia.co.uk/2022/07/13/nasa_jwst_the_carina_nebula.jpg
[10] https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.05632
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/15/jwst_jupiter/?td=rt-3a
[12] https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/observatory/instruments/index.html12
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YtLgn2M9JRIhqPhHEQMwkQAAANU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/13/james_webb_space_telescope_images/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/12/spacex_starship/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/05/esa_terrae_novae/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/09/james_webb_meteoroid/
[18] https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: And the answer to the question is
It might be worth the price tag. If it had met the initial target to launch in 2007 and a US$1 billion budget it would have been superbly worth it. The issue now is that access to space is getting much much cheaper. It's not impossible to imagine something much more capable being launched in 5-10 years with a budget of less than $1 billion. If that happens sooner rather than later it will devalue JWST.
Re: And the answer to the question is
Launch cost of the Ariane 5 is "only" about 150-200 million, out of the 10 billion spent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5#Launch_pricing_and_market_competition
So even if you can get a future launcher which is better / similar for 1 million dollars, it will still cost about 10 billion for the whole telescope.
Most of the money was spent on developing new technology, and one off manufacturing. You need 100s of parts to move very accurately to get the final alignment. And you can't exactly go to the JWST once launched to fix issues (like you could for the Hubble) so it has to work perfectly.
So expect a similar, large, complex telescope with better tech included to also cost just as much, unless they have a launcher which can send up a very large device which is about the size of a tennis court (or larger, since I understand you need bigger detectors / optics to get better performance) without needing it to unfold in space.
I don't think even SpaceX's upcoming Starship is capable of that.
Re: And the answer to the question is
He's quite rightly pointing out how much more value for money it could have been had it been on time and on budget. He's also saying it's most likely *still* value for money even 15 years late and 20x over budget and suggesting that the next one, if on time and on budget, might be so much better both technically and value for money. While thinking on this and a likely successor, remember that JWST was in the first discussion phases before Hubble was even launched. That means the JWST successor is probably being discussed right now.
Re: And the answer to the question is
The usual trade-off is time/quality/budget, pick any two. But that doesn't work when you're developing new technology as there are so many unknowns. You get to pick one: quality, the spec you want to meet and the real timescale and budget to achieve that become what they are. If you don't like the way they're working out the only option is to cancel. If you cancel you get nothing of your primary objective although you might also get some by-products in the form of the technologies that emerged from your development process. In the latter respect it would be interesting to know what products, possibly everyday products, emerge from the JWST.
I suppose the beancounter interpretation would be that as it exceeded so many of its design criteria it shouldn't have been as expensive as it was but that's just beancounters. The nature of something that you can only test properly when it's in orbit means you have to hope you can go and fix it if it doesn't work properly first time as happened with Hubble. This one's not Hubble so nobody's going to fix it. Nor are you likely to get to build a Mk II if the original has a problem.
"And so, after a quarter of a century, ... what does the entire effort have to show?"
Man has started to take in interest in local affairs...
Coat -> Mines the one with a couple of cans of beer and packets of peanuts in the pockets...
Re: "And so, after a quarter of a century, ... what does the entire effort have to show?"
"Coat -> Mines the one with a couple of cans of beer and packets of peanuts in the pockets..."
You forgot your Towel !!!
[And a Babelfish would be useful ...... if you can get one !!!]
:)
There will inevitability be some that suggest the money spent could be used to address world hunger.
But we cannot stop the world from turning until all these problems are fixed because it would never turn again.
(and lose its magnetic field and there would be no world for us anyway).
But this will excite and inform science for decades and meanwhile many times the cost is being pissed away in Ukraine.
World hunger is mostly self inflicted by us humans.
It has become a bigger issue recently due to the "not a war" in Ukraine now. And that was started by a single human (Putin, for those who don't know).
And before that, it was mostly a political problem, as we tend to produce ample food to feed the whole world. Last I checked, politics is also a human issue.
Yes, it is
Jwt, $10billon uk test and trace, £38billion..
One is a complete waste of public money, the other will stun the world with images from the beginning of the universe.
Re: Yes, it is
"One is a complete waste of public money, the other will stun the world with images from the beginning of the universe."
Should be:
"One will stun the world with images from the beginning of the universe and one will stun you as an example of complete and utter waste of money/time/effort"
:)
Re: Yes, it is
HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince Of Wales aircraft carriers - £6 billion.
Aircraft - £0, we couldn't afford them.
Re: Yes, it is
Old and outdated "news".
Sep '21
"Until now, the ships have embarked the fifth-generation jets but never have the two 65,000-tonne behemoths launched the fighters from their flight decks at the same time.
That’s now changed with HMS Prince of Wales exercising with the RAF’s 207 Squadron in waters close to the UK, while, on the other side of the world, HMS Queen Elizabeth carries out flying operations over the Pacific with her jets from 617 Squadron and VMFA-211 of the US Marine Corps."
Re: Yes, it is
Those are just for trials, it's supposed to have 48 F35s, but they've only bought 7 of them so far.
A qualified success?
As a technical achievement, it's really impressive. Seriously. So much stuff had to go right. And apparently it all has.
As a management exercise, it's been pretty much a total debacle. It was originally proposed in 1995 with an even larger mirror and a projected project cost of $500M. Eight years later when it finally became obvious that wasn't possible, TRW was given a $825M contract for a scaled back version to fly in 2010. Here it is 2023, and it's finally out there only 13 years late and 1200% over (the 2003) budget. A bit extreme even for space tech.
It'll surely be quite useful. My vague impression is that it's not quite as essential to astronomy as it was expected to be when it was conceived a quarter century ago because ground based telescopes have improved much more than was thought likely/possible back then. Perhaps an astronomy buff can enlighten us on that point. But compared to near bottomless and largely pointless money pits like the Space Shuttle, The International Space Station and the current programs to return to the moon without first spending the few billions to explore our satellite with rovers to see if there is any point in going back, I reckon this is a success story ... of sorts.
Re: A qualified success?
Ground based telescopes can't possibly compete in the far-IR region due to the heat of our atmosphere, where they have improved is in correcting for time-varying shimmering in the near-IR / visible region. That is why JWST has to be out in cold space and even to have its mirror brought down to ~40K by the fancy heat blanket.
Who picked up the bill?
As someone whose taxes have not paid one singe ¢ towards the cost, I can say with no doubt whatsoever that it is definitely worth what other people paid for it.
And the answer to the question is
Yes.
Best case, it lasts the 10 years and goes on to 20 years with good images all the time.
Worst case, it becomes an experiment on how common micrometroids are at the L2 point.
Either way we learn something new.
And it beats the SLS as an actual good NASA project (I think SLS has already surpassed JWST's cost and will have higher ongoing cost in terms of billions per launch cost) which actually produces some new knowledge.