Nancy Roman Space Telescope (WFIRST)

[Blackstar]

Only mirrors were donated, not satellites. The only thing left from NRO in WFIRST is one of the 2 mirrors.

Optics were donated (more than just mirror)

I may have mentioned it up-stream, but I have talked to the former Kodak engineer who told the Director of NRO to preserve them so that they could be used for a telescope. He also worked on Kodak's losing Hubble proposal, Chandra, and other things.

[Targeteer]

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/roman-space-telescope/telescope-for-nasas-roman-mission-complete-delivered-to-goddard/?utm_source=TWITTER&utm_medium=NASARoman&utm_campaign=NASASocial&linkId=653397973

Telescope for NASA’s Roman Mission Complete, Delivered to Goddard

Nov 14, 2024


Photo of Roman's Optical Telescope Assembly
This photo shows the Optical Telescope Assembly for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which was recently delivered to the largest clean room at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
NASA/Chris Gunn

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is one giant step closer to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. The mission has now received its final major delivery: the Optical Telescope Assembly, which includes a 7.9-foot (2.4-meter) primary mirror, nine additional mirrors, and supporting structures and electronics. The assembly was delivered Nov. 7. to the largest clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where the observatory is being built.

The telescope will focus cosmic light and send it to Roman’s instruments, revealing many billions of objects strewn throughout space and time. Using the mission’s Wide Field Instrument, a 300-megapixel infrared camera, astronomers will survey the cosmos all the way from the outskirts of our solar system toward the edge of the observable universe. Scientists will use Roman’s Coronagraph Instrument to test new technologies for dimming host stars to image planets and dusty disks around them in far better detail than ever before.

“We have a top-notch telescope that’s well aligned and has great optical performance at the cold temperatures it will see in space,” said Bente Eegholm, optics lead for Roman’s Optical Telescope Assembly at NASA Goddard. “I am now looking forward to the next phase where the telescope and instruments will be put together to form the Roman observatory.”
photo of the Roman Optical Telescope Assembly
In this photo, optical engineer Bente Eegholm inspects the surface of the primary mirror for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. This 7.9-foot (2.4-meter) mirror is a major component of the Optical Telescope Assembly, which also contains nine additional mirrors and supporting structures and electronics.
NASA/Chris Gunn

Designed and built by L3Harris Technologies in Rochester, New York, the assembly incorporates key optics (including the primary mirror) that were made available to NASA by the National Reconnaissance Office. The team at L3Harris then reshaped the mirror and built upon the inherited hardware to ensure it would meet Roman’s specifications for expansive, sensitive infrared observations.

“The telescope will be the foundation of all of the science Roman will do, so its design and performance are among the largest factors in the mission’s survey capability,” said Josh Abel, lead Optical Telescope Assembly systems engineer at NASA Goddard.

The team at Goddard worked closely with L3Harris to ensure these stringent requirements were met and that the telescope assembly will integrate smoothly into the rest of the Roman observatory.

The assembly’s design and performance will largely determine the quality of the mission’s results, so the manufacturing and testing processes were extremely rigorous. Each optical component was tested individually prior to being assembled and assessed together earlier this year. The tests helped ensure that the alignment of the telescope’s mirrors will change as expected when the telescope reaches its operating temperature in space.

Then, the telescope was put through tests simulating the extreme shaking and intense sound waves associated with launch. Engineers also made sure that tiny components called actuators, which will adjust some of the mirrors in space, move as predicted. And the team measured gases released from the assembly as it transitioned from normal air pressure to a vacuum –– the same phenomenon that has led astronauts to report that space smells gunpowdery or metallic. If not carefully controlled, these gases could contaminate the telescope or instruments.
photo of Roman's Optical Telescope Assembly
Upon arrival at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the Optical Telescope Assembly for the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope was lifted out of the shipping fixture and placed with other mission hardware in Goddard’s largest clean room. Now, it will be installed onto Roman’s Instrument Carrier, a structure that will keep the telescope and Roman’s two instruments optically aligned. The assembly’s electronics box –– essentially the telescope’s brain –– will be mounted within the spacecraft along with Roman’s other electronics.
NASA/Chris Gunn

Finally, the telescope underwent a month-long thermal vacuum test to ensure it will withstand the temperature and pressure environment of space. The team closely monitored it during cold operating conditions to ensure the telescope’s temperature will remain constant to within a fraction of a degree. Holding the temperature constant allows the telescope to remain in stable focus, making Roman’s high-resolution images consistently sharp. Nearly 100 heaters on the telescope will help keep all parts of it at a very stable temperature.

“It is very difficult to design and build a system to hold temperatures to such a tight stability, and the telescope performed exceptionally,” said Christine Cottingham, thermal lead for Roman’s Optical Telescope Assembly at NASA Goddard.

Now that the assembly has arrived at Goddard, it will be installed onto Roman’s Instrument Carrier, a structure that will keep the telescope and Roman’s two instruments optically aligned. The assembly’s electronics box –– essentially the telescope’s brain –– will be mounted within the spacecraft along with Roman’s other electronics.

With this milestone, Roman remains on track for launch by May 2027.

“Congratulations to the team on this stellar accomplishment!” said J. Scott Smith, the assembly’s telescope manager at NASA Goddard. “The completion of the telescope marks the end of an epoch and incredible journey for this team, and yet only a chapter in building Roman. The team’s efforts have advanced technology and ignited the imaginations of those who dream of exploring the stars.”

Virtually tour an interactive version of the telescope

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems Inc. in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Rochester, New York; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.

By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

[Targeteer]

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/roman-space-telescope/nasa-successfully-integrates-roman-missions-telescope-instruments/?utm_source=TWITTER&utm_medium=NASARoman&utm_campaign=NASASocial&linkId=687103511

NASA Successfully Integrates Roman Mission’s Telescope, Instruments

Dec 12, 2024
 
Roman Integrated Payload Assembly
The telescope and instruments for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope were recently integrated together on the observatory’s instrument carrier at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Next, the entire system will be joined to the Roman spacecraft.

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has successfully integrated the mission’s telescope and two instruments onto the instrument carrier, marking the completion of the Roman payload. Now the team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will begin joining the payload to the spacecraft.

“We’re in the middle of an exciting stage of mission preparation,” said Jody Dawson, a Roman systems engineer at NASA Goddard. “All the components are now here at Goddard, and they’re coming together in quick succession. We expect to integrate the telescope and instruments with the spacecraft before the year is up.”

Engineers first integrated the Coronagraph Instrument, a technology demonstration designed to image exoplanets — worlds outside our solar system — by using a complex suite of masks and active mirrors to obscure the glare of the planets’ host stars.

Then the team integrated the Optical Telescope Assembly, which includes a 7.9-foot (2.4-meter) primary mirror, nine additional mirrors, and their supporting structures and electronics. The telescope will focus cosmic light and send it to Roman’s instruments, revealing billions of objects strewn throughout space and time. Roman will be the most stable large telescope ever built, at least 10 times more so than NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and 100 times more than the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope. This will allow scientists to make measurements at levels of precision that can answer important questions about dark energy, dark matter, and worlds beyond our solar system.
Roman Wide Field Instrument installation
Technicians install the primary instrument for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, called the Wide Field Instrument (at left), in the biggest clean room at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. This marked the final step to complete the Roman payload, which also includes a Coronagraph instrument and the Optical Telescope Assembly.
NASA/Chris Gunn

With those components in place, the team then added Roman’s primary instrument. Called the Wide Field Instrument, this 300-megapixel infrared camera will give Roman a deep, panoramic view of the universe. Through the Wide Field Instrument’s surveys, scientists will be able to explore distant exoplanets, stars, galaxies, black holes, dark energy, dark matter, and more. Thanks to this instrument and the observatory’s efficiency, Roman will be able to image large areas of the sky 1,000 times faster than Hubble with the same sharp, sensitive image quality.

“It would be quicker to list the astronomy topics Roman won’t be able to address than those it will,” said Julie McEnery, the Roman senior project scientist at NASA Goddard. “We’ve never had a tool like this before. Roman will revolutionize the way we do astronomy.”

The telescope and instruments were mounted to Roman’s instrument carrier and precisely aligned in the largest clean room at Goddard, where the observatory is being assembled. Now, the whole assembly is being attached to the Roman spacecraft, which will deliver the observatory to its orbit and enable it to function once there.

At the same time, the mission’s deployable aperture cover — a visor that will shield the telescope from unwanted light — is being joined to the outer barrel assembly, which serves as the telescope’s exoskeleton.

“We’ve had an incredible year, and we’re looking forward to another one!” said Bear Witherspoon, a Roman systems engineer at NASA Goddard. “While the payload and spacecraft undergo a smattering of testing together, the team will work toward integrating the solar panels onto the outer barrel assembly.”

That keeps the observatory on track for completion by fall 2026 and launch no later than May 2027.

To virtually tour an interactive version of the telescope, visit:

https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/interactive

[deadman1204]

thats so wild that its happening! Camera and coronograph are integrated with the mirror!

[StraumliBlight]

NASA Joins Telescope, Instruments to Roman Spacecraft [Jan 8]

Technicians have successfully integrated NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s payload – the telescope, instrument carrier, and two instruments – to the spacecraft that will deliver the observatory to its place in space and enable it to function while there.

“With this incredible milestone, Roman remains on track for launch, and we’re a big step closer to unveiling the cosmos as never before,” said Mark Clampin, acting deputy associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “It’s been fantastic to watch the team’s progress throughout the integration phase. I look forward to Roman’s transformative observations.”

The newly joined space hardware will now undergo extensive testing. The first test will ensure each major element operates as designed when integrated with the rest of the observatory and establish the hardware’s combined performance. Then environmental tests will subject the payload to the electromagnetic, vibration, and thermal vacuum environments it will experience during launch and on-orbit operations. These tests will ensure the hardware and the launch vehicle will not interfere with each other when operating, verify the communications antennas won’t create electromagnetic interference with other observatory hardware, shake the assembly to make sure it will survive extreme vibration during launch, assess its performance across its expected range of operating temperatures, and make sure the instruments and mirrors are properly optically aligned.

Meanwhile, Roman’s deployable aperture cover will be integrated with the outer barrel assembly, and then the solar panels will be added before spring. Then the structure will be joined to the payload and spacecraft this fall.

The Roman mission remains on track for completion by fall 2026 and launch no later than May 2027.

[StraumliBlight]

NASA Successfully Joins Sunshade to Roman Observatory’s ‘Exoskeleton’ [Feb 12]

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has successfully integrated the mission’s deployable aperture cover — a visor-like sunshade that will help prevent unwanted light from entering the telescope — to the outer barrel assembly, another structure designed to shield the telescope from stray light in addition to keeping it at a stable temperature.

“It’s been incredible to see these major components go from computer models to building and now integrating them,” said Sheri Thorn, an aerospace engineer working on Roman’s sunshade at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Since it’s all coming together at Goddard, we get a front row seat to the process. We’ve seen it mature, kind of like watching a child grow up, and it’s a really gratifying experience.”

The sunshade functions like a heavy-duty version of blackout curtains you might use to keep your room extra dark. It will make Roman more sensitive to faint light from across the universe, helping astronomers see dimmer and farther objects. Made of two layers of reinforced thermal blankets, the sunshade is designed to remain folded during launch and deploy after Roman is in space. Three booms will spring upward when triggered electronically, raising the sunshade like a page in a pop-up book.

The sunshade blanket has an inner and outer layer separated by about an inch, much like a double-paned window. “We’re prepared for micrometeoroid impacts that could occur in space, so the blanket is heavily fortified,” said Brian Simpson, Roman’s deployable aperture cover lead at NASA Goddard. “One layer is even reinforced with Kevlar, the same thing that lines bulletproof vests. By placing some space in between the layers we reduce the risk that light would leak in, because it’s unlikely that the light would pass through both layers at the exact same points where the holes were.”
 
Over the course of a few hours, technicians meticulously joined the sunshade to the outer barrel assembly — both Goddard-designed components — in the largest clean room at NASA Goddard. The outer barrel assembly will help keep the telescope at a stable temperature and, like the sunshade, help shield the telescope from stray light and micrometeoroid impacts. It’s fitted with heaters to help ensure the telescope’s mirrors won’t experience wide temperature swings, which make materials expand and contract.
 
“Roman is made up of a lot of separate components that come together after years of design and fabrication,” said Laurence Madison, a mechanical engineer at NASA Goddard. “The deployable aperture cover and outer barrel assembly were built at the same time, and up until the integration the two teams mainly used reference drawings to make sure everything would fit together as they should. So the successful integration was both a proud moment and a relief!”

Both the sunshade and outer barrel assembly have been extensively tested individually, but now that they’re connected engineers are assessing them again. Following the integration, the team tested the sunshade deployment.
 
“Since the sunshade was designed to deploy in space, the system isn’t actually strong enough to deploy itself in Earth’s gravity,” said Matthew Neuman, a mechanical engineer working on Roman’s sunshade at NASA Goddard. “So we used a gravity negation system to offset its weight and verified that everything works as expected.”
 
Next, the components will undergo thermal vacuum testing together to ensure they will function as planned in the temperature and pressure environment of space. Then they’ll move to a shake test to assess their performance during the extreme vibrations they’ll experience during launch.
 
Technicians will join Roman’s solar panels to the outer barrel assembly and sunshade this spring, and then integrate them with the rest of the observatory by the end of the year.
 
The mission has now passed a milestone called Key Decision Point-D, marking the official transition from the fabrication stage that culminated in the delivery of major components to the phase involving assembly, integration, testing, and launch. The Roman observatory remains on track for completion by fall 2026 and launch no later than May 2027.

[catdlr]

NASA's Roman Space Telescope Hardware Highlights: Summer/Fall 2024

eb 25, 2025
Every day, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope moves closer to completion. This video highlights some of the important hardware milestones from part of this journey. Components and systems are built separately, tested, and then integrated with larger parts of the spacecraft to carefully build the full observatory. Roman’s foundation is the primary structure, or spacecraft bus, which houses electronics and support systems. Like the chassis of a car, everything is built up from this aluminum hexagon. 

This video, covering the summer and fall of 2024, opens with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s Space Environment Simulator. This thermal vacuum chamber is used to test Roman’s Instrument Carrier, which will hold and connect the instruments and mirror. Once the hardware is in place, the chamber evacuates the air and generates high and low temperature extremes to simulate the conditions in space.

Workers carefully deploy Roman’s High-Gain Antenna to ensure that it will operate as expected. The 5.6-foot (1.7-meter) dish is Roman’s primary means of communication and will be responsible for sending roughly 1.4 terabytes of data back to Earth each day.

The Outer Barrel Assembly is tested on Goddard’s 120-foot-diameter centrifuge. This structure will surround and protect Roman’s primary mirror from stray light. Engineers add weights to simulate additional hardware and tip the Outer Barrel Assembly at different angles over multiple spins to certify that it can withstand all the forces it will experience over its life.

The Wide Field Instrument (WFI), Roman’s primary science tool, arrives at Goddard after testing at BAE Systems where it was built. Workers push a sealed crate into the clean room where they can remove the WFI and test it to ensure it made the trip safely. The Optical Telescope Assembly is a combination of the 7.9-foot (2.4-meter) primary mirror, the smaller secondary mirror, and many additional optical elements designed to direct the focused beam of light to Roman’s two instruments. It was built and tested at L3Harris and is the last major piece of hardware to arrive at Goddard.

Its special shipping container will also house the completed Roman telescope when it leaves for launch. The Coronagraph Instrument is the first major component integrated, or connected, to the Instrument Carrier. The Coronagraph is a technology demonstration capable of directly image planets outside our solar system, was developed and built at JPL in California. The Optical Telescope Assembly is the next piece integrated. It has to be carefully aligned with the Coronagraph so that light from the mirrors can perfectly pass through an opening in the Coronagraph.

First comes mechanical integration, where the hardware is physically connected, and then comes electrical integration where all the various electrical systems are hooked up.

The final piece is the Wide Field Instrument, which had to go last because of its size and position. Engineers carefully align it with an opening in the Optical Telescope Assembly so light can pass from one to the other. With the addition of this final element, the instruments, mirrors, and carrier are now called the Integrated Payload Assembly.

A very large team of engineers and technical crew lift the Integrated Payload Assembly over the Spacecraft Bus and lower it into place. Mechanical integration takes several hours; electrical integration will take days. Now unified, the heart of the Roman spacecraft is complete. 

To learn more about all these systems and where they fit into Roman, visit https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/interactive/
. 

[catdlr]

Video post:
https://twitter.com/NASARoman/status/1894447849418395663

From final hardware arrivals to installations of the core instruments, so much is underway at
@NASAGoddard
.

Check out these Roman hardware highlights!

Stay up to date on the mission’s progress: https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/interactive/

[StraumliBlight]

Ars Technica: Trump White House budget proposal eviscerates science funding at NASA [Apr 11]

Detailing the cuts

Among the proposals were: A two-thirds cut to astrophysics, down to $487 million; a greater than two-thirds cut to heliophysics, down to $455 million; a greater than 50 percent cut to Earth science, down to $1.033 billion; and a 30 percent cut to Planetary science, down to $1.929 billion.

Although the budget would continue support for ongoing missions such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, it would kill the much-anticipated Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, an observatory seen as on par with those two world-class instruments that is already fully assembled and on budget for a launch in two years.

"Passback supports continued operation of the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes and assumes no funding is provided for other telescopes," the document states.

[Eric Hedman]

Ars Technica: Trump White House budget proposal eviscerates science funding at NASA [Apr 11]

Detailing the cuts

Among the proposals were: A two-thirds cut to astrophysics, down to $487 million; a greater than two-thirds cut to heliophysics, down to $455 million; a greater than 50 percent cut to Earth science, down to $1.033 billion; and a 30 percent cut to Planetary science, down to $1.929 billion.

Although the budget would continue support for ongoing missions such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, it would kill the much-anticipated Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, an observatory seen as on par with those two world-class instruments that is already fully assembled and on budget for a launch in two years.

"Passback supports continued operation of the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes and assumes no funding is provided for other telescopes," the document states.

I suspect there will be some horse trading to bring some of this back.  I could see some of this returning in exchange for cutting long lead items for SLS such as the Dark Night solid boosters and RS-25 production for later SLS launches.  Everything is a negotiation with this administration.  This is most likely the opening position to get what they really want.  We have yet to see the plan of what the really want for the agency.

[Robotbeat]

To be fair, I’ve always been kind of shocked by how expensive Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is supposed to be. This started out as a “cheap” telescope based on an excess spy satellite platform and now it has gone from $2 billion to $4.3 billion and it hasn’t launched yet.

Another JWST fiasco (and yes, if you have a longer term memory than a goldfish, you OUGHT to remember it was a fiasco) would be devastating to NASA. Launch costs are dropping, satellite manufacture costs are dropping, so we shouldn’t tolerate ballooning space telescope costs.

Some of the NGRST contractors underbid the original cost, leading to cost overruns of over double in the case of BAE.

I don’t like the top line number budget cuts, but NGRST itself probably should be killed ASAP. Report by OIG last year: https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ig-24-014.pdf

[Lee Jay]

To be fair, I’ve always been kind of shocked by how expensive Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is supposed to be. This started out as a “cheap” telescope based on an excess spy satellite platform and now it has gone from $2 billion to $4.3 billion and it hasn’t launched yet.

Another JWST fiasco (and yes, if you have a longer term memory than a goldfish, you OUGHT to remember it was a fiasco) would be devastating to NASA. Launch costs are dropping, satellite manufacture costs are dropping, so we shouldn’t tolerate ballooning space telescope costs.

Some of the NGRST contractors underbid the original cost, leading to cost overruns of over double in the case of BAE.

I don’t like the top line number budget cuts, but NGRST itself probably should be killed ASAP. Report by OIG last year: https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ig-24-014.pdf

These are highly-complex one-off scientific devices that in most cases have specialized technology developed just for their mission and used nowhere else before.  It's VERY expensive to develop new technology that has never existed before.  Think on the order of 1,000 times the cost of building each of copies 100 to 1000 of the same item.

[Robotbeat]

Well, then, since it’s so important and advanced, maybe we should get contractors that can execute and don’t underbid just to get the contract and then let prices balloon? Maybe we should leverage the insanely low cost and highly advanced capabilities of the new space sector instead of the defense contractor network that is addicted to poor performance?

https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ig-24-014.pdf

[wannamoonbase]

Well, then, since it’s so important and advanced, maybe we should get contractors that can execute and don’t underbid just to get the contract and then let prices balloon? Maybe we should leverage the insanely low cost and highly advanced capabilities of the new space sector instead of the defense contractor network that is addicted to poor performance?

https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ig-24-014.pdf

I think your right and wrong here. 

The first time, one off, super technical advanced science is not cheap, and US Defense contractors (which is basically who builds these things) are world class as setting up a project that maximizes revenue while dragging out producing results.

Boeing with SLS, the EUS, my god how they have bloated that thing.

Lockheed and Orion, the RS-25 cost per unit.

So much room for improvement.

I am more accepting of those situations when it comes to advanced cutting edge science than producing a new vehicle using 50 year old hardware.

[Lee Jay]

Well, then, since it’s so important and advanced, maybe we should get contractors that can execute and don’t underbid just to get the contract and then let prices balloon? Maybe we should leverage the insanely low cost and highly advanced capabilities of the new space sector instead of the defense contractor network that is addicted to poor performance?

https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ig-24-014.pdf

Here's the problem.

If you bid what it's going to cost, you can't get funded because the cost is too high.
If you underbid enough to get funded, you're guaranteed to overrun the costs.

This happens across all levels of government except, in some cases, on projects that are under a million dollars.

If the funding sources would accept and fund realistic bids, this wouldn't happen all the time, but they don't.

Here's my rule of thumb on this.  Figure out what a project will cost if everything goes right, and multiply it by pi.  That will get you a good estimate of what it's actually going to cost and how long it's going to take.  This is, of course, for one-off research type things, not building a road or rectangular building or something else we've done millions of times.

[vjkane]

The comments below don't reflect what the cited Inspector General's office found: "Although critical system integration, testing, and associated tasks remain, as of March 2024, Roman was meeting its cost
obligations and schedule to launch by May 2027." The report cites problems, particularly the effects of the Covid pandemic, but those always occur in large projects.  That's why they carry funding reserves.

I think there's a simple explanation for why the administration is looking to kill this program. They want to close the Goddard Spaceflight Center, which is the primary NASA center for climate research and building climate oriented satellite missions.  Roman and DaVinci are both Goddard projects; in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[Robotbeat]

I don’t agree that it’s good we normalize a doubling of costs and intentional underbidding.

But yeah, I kind of agree that wanting to close Goddard is much of the true motivation. Also, the telescope is already very close to launch so I’m not sure that saving the small amount remaining would necessarily make sense.

[Jim]

Well, then, since it’s so important and advanced, maybe we should get contractors that can execute and don’t underbid just to get the contract and then let prices balloon? Maybe we should leverage the insanely low cost and highly advanced capabilities of the new space sector instead of the defense contractor network that is addicted to poor performance?

NRST is a in-house build at Goddard.  Much like the telescope part of JWST (NG built the bus, structure of the telescope and the sunshield)

[vjkane]

I don’t agree that it’s good we normalize a doubling of costs and intentional underbidding.

A question on your costs. What are you using as your base cost that got doubled? Unless it's the estimated cost at Key Decision Point C, everything before was based on preliminary concepts, maturing design understanding, and cost estimates that tried to track both.

NASA considers KDP C as the point in which a set of features, a design to implement those features, and a cost become fixed and NASA considers that a formal agreement with Congress (which then appropriates the funds for Phases C-F, the expensive ones). 

All cost estimates before that should are immature, and immature estimates almost always are much lower because the features aren't frozen and not enough design work has been done to know where the alligators are.

[Kaputnik]

If a project like NGRST was cancelled and placed in storage, would it be at all feasible for it to be transferred to ESA for completion? I guess there would be many difficulties but I'm curious about whether these are primarily technical (personnel, skills, and facilities) or political (like ITAR).