'It's extremely worrisome.' NASA's James Webb Space Telescope faces potential 20% budget cut

'It's extremely worrisome.' NASA's James Webb Space Telescope faces potential 20% budget cut just 4 years after launch

The scientists behind NASA's largest and most powerful space telescope ever built are bracing for potentially crippling budget cuts, and the observatory is only halfway through its primary mission.

The team overseeing NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been directed to prepare for up to 20% in budget cuts that would touch on every aspect of the flagship observatory's operations, which are managed by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Maryland. The potential cut comes even as the space observatory is more in demand than ever before, with astronomers requesting the equivalent of nine years' worth of Webb observing time in one operational year.

"NASA is having budget constraints across the entire board, so the institute is being asked to consider a significant — about 20% — cut to our operational budget for the mission starting later this year," Tom Brown, who leads the Webb mission office at STScI, told a crowd of scientists last month at the 245th American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in National Harbor, Maryland. "So the impacts of that, if it comes to pass, pretty much cut across the entire mission.

NASA's $25.4 billion budget request for 2025 set aside $317 million to fund the Webb space telescope, as well as the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory that together comprise NASA's currently operational "Great Observatories." The Hubble Telescope program is facing a potential 20% budget cut of its own, according to SpaceNews. And Chandra is facing the end of its mission, with NASA's 2025 budget request including plans to wind down operations, with its budget dropping from $41.1 million this year to just $5.2 million in 2029.

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/james-webb-space-telescope/nasa-james-webb-space-telescope-faces-20-percent-budget-cuts