NASA's James Webb Telescope delayed, this time because of coronavirus

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is now going to experience yet another delay, according to NASA's associate administrator for science.

NASA was planning on launches the James Webb Space Telescope on June 10, but now according to Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science, the launch date will be unfortunately missed once again. The James Webb Space Telescope is the successor to Hubble, and has been in construction in some form since 1989. The successor to the famous Hubble Space Telescope is described by Zurbuchen as, "agency's next great space observatory."

Here's what Zurbuchen said in a meeting of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine's Space Studies Board, "We will not launch in March [2021], that is not in the cards right now... It's not anyone's fault or mismanagement." The reason why the new space telescope has to be delayed is because of the coronavirus outbreak. Due to the shutdowns, all shifts that were working on the telescope that would usually be fully staffed weren't. The shutdowns essentially lost the engineers a lot of time, and as a result, have knocked the release timeline for the telescope off course.

Last updated: Jun 17, 2020 at 07:27 pm CDT