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Apart from being the largest and most complex of its kind ever sent to space, the tricky thing is that it will be positioned at the Sun-Earth L2 point, far beyo

Apart from being the largest and most complex of its kind ever sent to space, the tricky thing is that it will be positioned at the Sun-Earth L2 point, far beyond the orbit of the moon. Hubble was as successful and long-living as it was because of several manned maintenance, upgrade and repair missions mentioned by others already - but Hubble is in a LEO, only a few 100km from Earth. The JWST? 1.5 million km. So missions like these aren't going to happen, this has to work on the first try.

ygra 8y ago
Have the Hubble servicing missions been actually cost-effective or was that more something that could be done because the Space Shuttle existed, although building a replacement would have been cheaper? (The latter would probably have had a problem having its budget approved, compared to the servicing missions, I guess.)
- reacweb 8y ago
  The cost assessment of service missions take into account all the experience gathered when performing them. Even if a replacement telescope is cheaper, you do not learn anything.
  - SiempreViernes 8y ago
    What you learn is mainly about engineering challenges of servicing satellites though, and if that's not a cost effective solution due to launch costs it does not seem that important.
    - GTP 8y ago
      I think it's still valuable since we have tons of waste in our orbit that has already proven to be problematic. Maybe it's not cost effective if you only consider the cost of sending a new satellite vs the costs of repairing an old one, but if you take into account the reduced waste and the problems you avoid by having a cleaner orbit it may be worth the extra money.
      - SiempreViernes 8y ago
        Deorbiting is the reasonable way of keeping the orbit clean until there is actually anyone up there that can recycle in situ.
    - bluGill 8y ago
      No, you learn about servicing things in space. If we are to ever send humans far from earth (mars perhaps) they need to have the ability to service their craft should something break. If a satellite breaks in space sending a new one is probably the most cost effective thing to do. However I have a moral problem with the idea that humans sent to mars would be told to die if something goes wrong. That means the ability to repair the things that go wrong.
- dredds 8y ago
  Hard to put a price on astroscience or cosmology. Hubble was just recently assisting in the search for the very first discovered exo-moon. http://earthsky.org/space/1st-exomoon-neptune-sized-kepler-1625b-hubble http://earthsky.org/space/1st-exomoon-neptune-sized-kepler-1... In the mid-1990s, after Hubble had its optics corrected, researchers were already planning its successor. The catch phrase in NASA at the time was “faster, better, cheaper.” JWT was announced in 1996 to a standing ovation, yet it's current planned launch is due 25 years after that announcement. (note that it's infrared, not optical)
  - marcosdumay 8y ago
    > Hard to put a price on astroscience or cosmology. It's pretty easy. Did those missions cost more or less than making a copy of Hubble and launching it?

ygra 8y ago

Have the Hubble servicing missions been actually cost-effective or was that more something that could be done because the Space Shuttle existed, although building a replacement would have been cheaper? (The latter would probably have had a problem having its budget approved, compared to the servicing missions, I guess.)

reacweb 8y ago
The cost assessment of service missions take into account all the experience gathered when performing them. Even if a replacement telescope is cheaper, you do not learn anything.
- SiempreViernes 8y ago
  What you learn is mainly about engineering challenges of servicing satellites though, and if that's not a cost effective solution due to launch costs it does not seem that important.
  - GTP 8y ago
    I think it's still valuable since we have tons of waste in our orbit that has already proven to be problematic. Maybe it's not cost effective if you only consider the cost of sending a new satellite vs the costs of repairing an old one, but if you take into account the reduced waste and the problems you avoid by having a cleaner orbit it may be worth the extra money.
    - SiempreViernes 8y ago
      Deorbiting is the reasonable way of keeping the orbit clean until there is actually anyone up there that can recycle in situ.
  - bluGill 8y ago
    No, you learn about servicing things in space. If we are to ever send humans far from earth (mars perhaps) they need to have the ability to service their craft should something break. If a satellite breaks in space sending a new one is probably the most cost effective thing to do. However I have a moral problem with the idea that humans sent to mars would be told to die if something goes wrong. That means the ability to repair the things that go wrong.
dredds 8y ago
Hard to put a price on astroscience or cosmology. Hubble was just recently assisting in the search for the very first discovered exo-moon. http://earthsky.org/space/1st-exomoon-neptune-sized-kepler-1625b-hubble http://earthsky.org/space/1st-exomoon-neptune-sized-kepler-1... In the mid-1990s, after Hubble had its optics corrected, researchers were already planning its successor. The catch phrase in NASA at the time was “faster, better, cheaper.” JWT was announced in 1996 to a standing ovation, yet it's current planned launch is due 25 years after that announcement. (note that it's infrared, not optical)
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  > Hard to put a price on astroscience or cosmology. It's pretty easy. Did those missions cost more or less than making a copy of Hubble and launching it?