NAC Astrophysics Subcommittee to Get Update on JWST

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be the focus of a December 22 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s astrophysics subcommittee. An independent review recently concluded that JWST will cost an additional $1.4 billion, raising its pricetag to $6.5 billion and slipping its launch date another year, to 2015.

The impact of that cost increase on other astrophysics programs is a matter of considerable concern to the space astrophysics community. In today’s constrained federal budget environment, it is not likely that the agency will be given additional funds to make up the difference, meaning that other astrophysics programs probably will be delayed or not started.

The National Research Council (NRC) recently laid out plans for the next 10 years of ground- and space-based astrophysics research in the New Worlds New Horizons Decadal Survey. Whether those recommendations are affordable under these circumstances and, if not, what the road ahead portends will be a major topic of discussion not only at this subcommittee meeting, but at the upcoming annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Seattle. A special “town hall” meeting on JWST is scheduled for the evening of January 10.