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Can anyone with knowledge provide a rough estimate of how much would it cost to manufacture a second telescope considering all the research cost is assigned to

Can anyone with knowledge provide a rough estimate of how much would it cost to manufacture a second telescope considering all the research cost is assigned to first one. It is a hypothetical question to understand if we had lost it in launch would it have been a complete loss or can we have 2nd one within couple of billions and 3 years.

idealmedtech 5y ago
A lot of the core research wouldn't have to be repeated, but the build and verification costs would not go away, and to do proper verification takes many many years.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
A lot of those people hang out in the comments on Eric Berger's posts on Ars. Here's one example: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/11/james-webb-space-telescope-cleared-for-late-december-launch/?comments=1&post=40442499 https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/11/james-webb-space-tel... He estimates that a second would cost about 90% of the first.
- pas 5y ago
  So what's next? Modular telescopes? Couldn't the whole manufacturing of the module (semi-)automated? (So no need for so much testing, verification, etc.) Bring unit costs down, and launch a few of the modules each year. Eventually they'll have as big a mirror as they want.
  - miohtama 5y ago
    A telescope that is assembled in space.
  - nullc 5y ago
    I suspect it wouldn't be easy to incrementally build up a single large aperture because the secondary optics needed would be different at each size. If we build telescopes for optical vlbi we could build a fleet to have the resolution of a telescope kilometers across... I believe VLBI has been accomplished experimentally at MWIR wavelengths.
dr_orpheus 5y ago
From my experience the cost breakdown of a typical [0] satellite is on the order of 60% recurring engineering, 40% non-recurring engineering. I don't have a good sense of the breakdown for JWST but the assembly and verification campaign is huge compared to most satellites and they would have to do that again so I would expect the recurring engineering to be higher. Coupled with the fact that it wouldn't be directly build-to-print due to parts obsolescence and technology upgrades they would want to make the cost would probably be higher still. So its not going to be a huge cost savings but you could maybe do it for something like 70-80% of the original cost. As for the timeline, that's going to be a hard one to change. Consider that all of the mirror segments and optics were delivered by the end of 2013. So the integration and test campaign of the spacecraft took 8 years. There would definitely be some optimization and lessons learned from that and you could likely shave off a couple years. However, if we are also looking at building it "now" the supply chain issues also hit the aerospace industry. There are typical things that you would expect like chip shortages, but also random things like its difficult to buy the epoxy we normally use to glue solar cells on to panels. [0] "Typical" varies wildly here. So for typical I am assuming something like a large NASA earth science mission with building one spacecraft of a relatively unique design.

idealmedtech 5y ago

A lot of the core research wouldn't have to be repeated, but the build and verification costs would not go away, and to do proper verification takes many many years.

bryanlarsen 5y ago

A lot of those people hang out in the comments on Eric Berger's posts on Ars. Here's one example: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/11/james-webb-space-telescope-cleared-for-late-december-launch/?comments=1&post=40442499 https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/11/james-webb-space-tel... He estimates that a second would cost about 90% of the first.

pas 5y ago
So what's next? Modular telescopes? Couldn't the whole manufacturing of the module (semi-)automated? (So no need for so much testing, verification, etc.) Bring unit costs down, and launch a few of the modules each year. Eventually they'll have as big a mirror as they want.
- miohtama 5y ago
  A telescope that is assembled in space.
- nullc 5y ago
  I suspect it wouldn't be easy to incrementally build up a single large aperture because the secondary optics needed would be different at each size. If we build telescopes for optical vlbi we could build a fleet to have the resolution of a telescope kilometers across... I believe VLBI has been accomplished experimentally at MWIR wavelengths.

dr_orpheus 5y ago

From my experience the cost breakdown of a typical [0] satellite is on the order of 60% recurring engineering, 40% non-recurring engineering. I don't have a good sense of the breakdown for JWST but the assembly and verification campaign is huge compared to most satellites and they would have to do that again so I would expect the recurring engineering to be higher. Coupled with the fact that it wouldn't be directly build-to-print due to parts obsolescence and technology upgrades they would want to make the cost would probably be higher still. So its not going to be a huge cost savings but you could maybe do it for something like 70-80% of the original cost. As for the timeline, that's going to be a hard one to change. Consider that all of the mirror segments and optics were delivered by the end of 2013. So the integration and test campaign of the spacecraft took 8 years. There would definitely be some optimization and lessons learned from that and you could likely shave off a couple years. However, if we are also looking at building it "now" the supply chain issues also hit the aerospace industry. There are typical things that you would expect like chip shortages, but also random things like its difficult to buy the epoxy we normally use to glue solar cells on to panels. [0] "Typical" varies wildly here. So for typical I am assuming something like a large NASA earth science mission with building one spacecraft of a relatively unique design.