The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be the focus of a December 22 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s astrophysics subcommittee. An independent review recently concluded that JWST will cost an additional $1.4 billion, raising its pricetag to $6.5 billion and slipping its launch date another year, to 2015.

The impact of that cost increase on other astrophysics programs is a matter of considerable concern to the space astrophysics community. In today’s constrained federal budget environment, it is not likely that the agency will be given additional funds to make up the difference, meaning that other astrophysics programs probably will be delayed or not started.

The National Research Council (NRC) recently laid out plans for the next 10 years of ground- and space-based astrophysics research in the New Worlds New Horizons Decadal Survey. Whether those recommendations are affordable under these circumstances and, if not, what the road ahead portends will be a major topic of discussion not only at this subcommittee meeting, but at the upcoming annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Seattle. A special “town hall” meeting on JWST is scheduled for the evening of January 10.

A reciprocal visit from Chinese space officials to NASA is not yet being planned according to an interview Aviation Week & Space Technology’s Frank Mooring conducted with NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden on November 23. Bolden visited China last month.

Morring quotes Bolden as saying: “There is not a delegation coming next month as far as I know…. A reciprocal visit is something we continue to work with the interagency organizations … trying to figure out the timing on that…. I wouldn’t even say there is a reciprocal visit planned. I think everyone would like to see one, but everybody’s still in conversations.”

Ideas put forward for cooperation by Russian space agency head Anatoly Perminov in November similarly are “going nowhere fast,” according to the magazine.

Regarding the $1.5 billion cost growth on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently revealed by an independent panel, Bolden is quoted by Aviation Week as saying that the panel’s study was “only ‘back of the envelope'” and the issue is now being studied more thoroughly by a new management team. The goal is to enable the agency to “present a creditable story to the science community as well as all of our stakeholders” next year. As reported earlier by SpacePolicyOnline.com, the NAC astrophysics subcommittee will get an update on JWST on December 22 and a town hall meeting is scheduled for January 10, 2011 at the AAS annual meeting in Seattle.

UPDATE: Two events are added for December 2.

The following events may be of interest in the coming week. For more details, see our calendar on the right menu or click the links below. Dates and times for congressional hearings are subject to change; check with the relevant committee for up to date information.

Wednesday, December 1

• Senate Commerce Committee Hearing on implementing the NASA authorization act of 2010, 10:30 am, 253 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington DC
• Stimson Center, Next Steps in U.S. Space Diplomacy, 12:30 – 2:00 pm, 1111 19th Street NW, 12th Floor, Washington DC

Thursday, December 2

• Fifth Eilene M. Galloway Symposium on Critical Issues in Space Law, 8:30 am – 4:00 pm, Cosmos Club, Washington DC
• Aerospace Corporation U.S. Space Mission Assurance Summit, 8:00 am – 6:00 pm, Hyatt Regency Reston, Reston, VA (registration by invitation only, but NASAWatch/SpaceRef lists a media teleconference from 9:15 – 10:00 am)
• NASA teleconference on astrobiology discovery, 2:00 pm EST

Friday, December 3

• Marshall Institute/Space Enterprise Council, Implementing U.S. Space Policy, 9:00-11:00 am, 601 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC

UPDATE: NASA TV showed the egress of the crew live and a version of the video is available on the NASA TV YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/NASATelevision

ORIGINAL STORY

Three members of the International Space Station crew landed safely in Kazakhstan as scheduled.

CORRECTION: The Twitter URL has been corrected. It is an underscore rather than a hyphen in astro_wheels.

NASA Astronaut Doug Wheelock will return home tonight aboard a Soyuz spacecraft and is spending his final hours sending back photos from the International Space Station (ISS). You can link to them from his Twitter account at http://twitter.com/astro_wheels.

A particularly nifty one is a photo of him in the cupola looking down at Earth. Another shows the Soyuz capsule that will bring him and colleagues Shannon Walker and Fyodor Yurchikhin home, with Earth in the background. Undocking remains scheduled for 8:23 pm EST, with landing in Kazakhstan at 11:46 pm EST.

NASA TV has begun live coverage already.

The rest of us may be busy getting ready for Thanksgiving, but NASA is hard at work. The agency has scheduled a press conference for 2:00 pm CST (3:00 EST) this afternoon to update everyone on the launch of Discovery.

The press conference will follow a space shuttle program requirements review control board meeting to discuss the progress of repairs associated with two cracks in “stringers” on Discovery’s external tank. The press conference will be shown on NASA TV. Bill Gerstenmaier and John Shannon are the briefing participants.

Three members of the International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 25 crew are getting ready to return home tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day. Soyuz TMA-19 is scheduled to undock from the ISS at 8:23 pm EST and land in Kazakhstan at 11:46 pm EST (10:46 am November 26 at the landing site).

NASA astronauts Doug Wheelock and Shannon Walker will be aboard, along with Russian Fyodor Yurchikhin, who will be commander of the Soyuz during descent. One American, Scott Kelly, and two Russians, Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka, will remain on the ISS and be joined by three new colleagues in mid-December. That crew, which will launch from Kazakhstan on December 15 EST (December 16 in Kazakhstan), is composed of Russian Dmitry Kondratyev, American Cady Coleman, and Italian Paolo Nespoli, representing the European Space Agency.

For more on ISS crew comings and goings, check NASA’s ISS website.

Space shuttle managers feel that more analysis is needed before they can clear space shuttle Discovery for its final launch. The launch was scrubbed twice in November and slipped to no earlier than December 3. Shuttle program manager John Shannon said at a press conference today that it will not be ready for the December 3-7 window at all. The next window, December 17-20, is an option, but he is not sure they will be ready by then either. If not, the launch will have to wait untl February.

Two cracks were found in “stringers” on Discovery’s external tank after the tank was filled and emptied several times during the previous launch attempts. NASA needs time to do additional analysis to ensure that cracks do not develop during ascent and cause foam to be shed. Damage to the space shuttle Columbia orbiter from external tank foam shedding caused Columbia to disintegrate during reentry in 2003, killing all seven aboard.

Shannon said repeatedly today that NASA needs to understand its risk exposure better before commiting to launch. The shuttle is still on the launch pad and engineers have access to only one side of the tank. Rolling it back to the Vehicle Assembly Building so they can study the opposite side is one option they are considering, but no decisions have been finalized.

A National Research Council (NRC) report that assesses impediments to collaboration on space and earth science missions recommends that unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise, agencies should not partner on them. The report was released today.

The committee that wrote the report was co-chaired by Dr. James Baker, former Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and Dr. Daniel Baker, Director of the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). Dan Baker also is a member of the NRC’s Space Studies Board and co-chair of the ongoing NRC Decadal Survey on solar and space physics.

An NRC press release quotes Dr. James Baker as saying “A common misperception among policymakers and individual agencies is that collaboration on these missions will save money or somehow boost capabilities. … However, multiagency partnerships generally have just the opposite effect and drive up overall mission costs because of schedule delays, added levels of management, and redundant administrative processes.”

While international collaboration “suffers from the same increase in cost and complexity” such missions “typically receive much more planning upfront…” according to the press release.

In those cases where interagency partnering is mandated, the NRC lists criteria that should be met. If the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) or Office of Management and Budget (OMB), or Congress, want interagency cooperation, it says, specific incentives and support should be provided and a new governance mechanism may be needed for coordinated oversight since “OMB and OSTP are not suited to day-to-day oversight.”

Congress directed NASA to contract with the NRC to conduct the study in the 2008 NASA Authorization Act (P.L. 110-422).

The space policy community, like everyone else in the United States, is celebrating Thanksgiving this week. There are no space policy-related events to list. Hope you all have a very happy Thanksgiving!!