Shutdown for Spitzer and MaxWISE?
2014 NASA Astrophysics Senior Review
Spitzer: “Given the budget climate, the SRP cannot recommend funding of Spitzer at the levels requested. Should the mission be unable to operate given the levels of funding recommended through FY18, the mission should plan, in consultation with NASA HQ, for termination.”
NASA Response to the 2014 Senior Review for Astrophysics Operating Missions
“Spitzer Space Telescope: The Spitzer mission extension for FY 2015 is not approved due to the constrained budget conditions and based on the findings and recommendations of the Senior Review report.”
“Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE): The MaxWISE proposal was recommended for selection by the Senior Review. However, the only source of funding would be to displace funding from higher rated operating missions in the Senior Review. Due to constrained budget conditions, the MaxWISE proposal is declined.”
How UnWISE.
Thank you JWST.
Bon appetit, JWST
JWST will continue to act like Mr. Creosote (see Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life”) until it is either lost at launch or fails on orbit.
People need to get used to this fact of life, whether they like it or not.
And what will your response be if it achieves its station and works as designed? You confuse facts of life with what comes out of your own bias.
I had a quick scare and re-checked to be sure – JWST is slated to be launched on Ariane-5, NOT on Atlas V or Proton.
As long as the French don’t decide to annex British Columbia, at least the launch vehicle should be safe for now.
Right ? Also pretty happy that NASA payloads are self-insured – insurance bills on $10 billion telescope launches really suck even after safe driver discounts.
I had a quick scare and re-checked to be sure – JWST is slated to be launched on Ariane-5, NOT on Atlas V or Proton.
NASA has never launched on an Ariane 5 out of Kourou. Everyone in NASA should wear their “lucky” shirt or socks on launch day. Just to be safe.
Also pretty happy that NASA payloads are self-insured
There’s no insurance. If the mission pre-maturely fails, the taxpayers are out of that money.
And what will your response be if it achieves its station and works as
designed?
I really hope it does. But not all missions make it through the launch and/or deployment. It’s an accepted risk.
You confuse facts of life with what comes out of your own
bias.
No. I’m not biased; rather, I’m disgusted with the way NASA management has continually hidden the real escalating cost of the program from the public, hoping that it would be too late to cancel it when the truth came out. And the only way to pay for that increasing cost was and is to gut other programs not in the politically safe districts.
Excuse my bias but I can’t separate the NASA space science budget from the rest of it. It makes little sense to accuse JWST when the boondoggles in HSF could fund all of these sustaining missions with what they spend on a couple of low-level design reviews or another flight to the ISS for no compelling reason.
It is tragic to see a competition among these science missions for continuation dollars.
This was a couple down in my RSS feeds:
“Kepler-93b: A Terrestrial World Measured to within 120 km, and a Test Case for a New Spitzer Observing Mode” http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.3659
Amazing science – sad politics.
That’s disappointing, but then again Spitzer ran twice as long as expected and ran out of liquid helium 5 years ago. It’ has been living on borrowed time…
Except that the remaining instrument was significantly reworked and characterized and now spends a lot of time studying exoplanets, something it couldn’t do when the spacecraft was in it’s cryogenic mission. Spitzer remains heavily over-subscribed (e.g. many more people want to use it than the amount of time available). And it does this for a fraction of what a new (even small explorer) mission would cost.
Another sad casualty of science being tossed aside.
As someone who was raised on Star Trek, which caused much support for the space race, a suggestion. KICKSTARTER. As NASA is a government program, I am uncertain of the legalities involved, but I would certainly donate to keep our space program alive. This is particularly important with Russian threats to deny us access to space. Why the country that put men on the moon can’t see the importance of maintaining a presence in the skies above our world is beyond my comprehension. Who’s going to fix all the satellites we rely on for world contact and national security?