Here's why NASA's insane next-gen space telescope was delayed again

NASA announced that it had to delay the launch of its next-generation space telescope that was scheduled for liftoff next week.

According to the announcement from the space agency, the James Webb Space Telescope was scheduled for launch on December 22 to no earlier than December 24. NASA wrote on its blog and social channels on December 14 that the James Webb Space Telescope team was currently working on a communication issue, which was only recently fixed according to NASA's associate administrator for science missions, Thomas Zurbuchen.

Many scientists worldwide and individuals who have worked on the James Webb Space Telescope are nervous about the upcoming launch. The telescope has faced countless delays throughout its long development and, as a result, has been quite exponentially expensive.

The next-generation telescope will be able to see back further in time than any other telescope ever built, but with that power comes downsides. The space telescope is extremely fragile and has "300 single-point failure items, and they all have to work right," or else the telescope turns into a $10+ billion piece of space junk that can't be retrieved.

2