Webb telescope’s launch delayed until 2020

Blaming a slew of technical snags and “avoidable errors,” NASA officials said Tuesday that the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, already years behind schedule, will be delayed to 2020, potentially pushing the mission’s development cost above an $8 billion cap mandated by Congress. Problems encountered in recent months with the observatory’s spacecraft bus, the section that will host the mission’s expandable telescope after liftoff, prompted a review of the schedule engineers need to prepare it for liftoff. More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Mar 28)