House Hearing on NASA’s Next Four Large Telescopes, December 2017

The Space Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee held a hearing on December 6, 2017 on “NASA’s Next Four Large Telescopes.”

By that the committee meant the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), and planning for whatever will come next. Part of the discussion focused on a recently announced delay to the JWST launch.  NASA Associate Administrator for Science Mission Directorate Thomas Zurbuchen said that he agreed with another witness, Tom Young, that an independent review of the JWST schedule is needed and he has directed his team to do that in January.  Another focus was a recently released independent review of WFIRST which found that it is not executable as currently formulated.  Zurbuchen has ordered that the program be downscoped to fit within a smaller budget.

SpacePolicyOnline.com published a summary of the hearing on December 6.