How Much Did The James Webb Space Telescope Cost?
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) finally launched in December 2021 after multiple delays over the past several years — but how much did the whole thing actually cost? The JWST is primarily an infrared telescope that promises to improve infrared resolution and sensitivity over the decades-old Hubble Space Telescope. The new observatory was initially supposed to launch in 2007, and the delays spiraled its budget upwards by a factor of twenty.
The James Webb Space Telescope is expected to help astrophysicists study some of the earliest galaxies and cosmic bodies that have been difficult to observe until now. It began orbiting its L2 path towards the end of January, with that being immediately followed by optics alignment and instrument calibration for several weeks. On March 16, NASA shared the first-ever James Webb image — showcasing a faraway star in incredible detail.
Related: How Long Will The James Webb Space Telescope Last? Here's What We Know
The JWST was successfully launched on Dec 25, 2021, from ESA's launch site at Kourou in French Guiana, at 7:20 a.m. EST (1220 GMT), onboard an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket. By the time it was launched, the James Webb telescope cost a whopping $10 billion, which is a massive escalation from its originally-proposed $500 million budget. After initially missing the $500 million budget, James Webb was later assessed to cost between $1 and $3.5 billion when Northrop Grumman picked up the project in 2002, but as we know now, even that was a gross underestimate. While the $10 billion price sounds inordinately high — and it is — the JWST is the world's largest and most powerful science telescope in space. It's expected to help researchers unearth everything from mysteries of the
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