NASA’s costly telescope gets delayed once more

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s next-generation space telescope has been delayed yet again at a staggering cost of $1 million a day.

For the third time in less than a year, the space agency announced a lengthy postponement Wednesday for the James Webb Space Telescope. The observatory will now fly no earlier than 2021; until last fall, it was on the books for a 2018 launch.

The telescope’s overall cost is now expected to reach nearly $10 billion. Development cost alone will exceed the $8 billion cap set by Congress by more than $800 million and require reauthorization.

In an acoustic test of the telescope this year in California by prime contractor Northrop Grumman, dozens of loose fasteners — some 70 pieces in all — came off. A few pieces are still missing and could well be inside the observatory.

Also, an improper solvent was used to clean spacecraft propulsion valves. No one bothered to check to see whether the cleaner might damage the equipment, said review board chairman Tom Young.

NASA repeatedly was overly optimistic in the work schedule, especially given the complexities and unique features of the Webb telescope, Young said. Its sunshield, the size of a tennis court once opened, is needed to keep the infrared telescope cold and is a major risk area, he said.

Considered a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, Webb is meant to peer farther into space and deeper into time than ever before. It will operate from a point 1 million miles from Earth, unreachable by astronauts like the low-orbiting Hubble — launched in 1990 with a misshapen mirror — was.