NASA approves $1.2 billion asteroid-hunting space telescope
NASA has given the go-ahead to build NEO-Surveyor for $1.2 billion, more than twice the cost of its original proposal, to launch by 2028 and then look for potentially dangerous asteroids.
Notably, NEO Surveyor was earlier estimated to cost between $500 million and $600 million, or around half of the new commitment. The NASA statement said that the cost and schedule commitments outlined align the mission with “program management best practices that account for potential technical risks and budgetary uncertainty beyond the development project’s control.” Earlier this year, the project’s launch was delayed two years, from 2026, due to agency budget concerns.
The mission is designed to discover 90% of potentially Earth-threatening asteroids and comets 460 feet (140 meters) or larger that come within 30 million miles (48 million kilometers) of Earth’s orbit. The spacecraft will carry out the survey while from Earth-sun Lagrange Point 1, a gravitationally stable spot in space about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) inside the Earth’s orbit around the sun.
A prediction: It will cost more, and not launch on time. NASA’s decision to double the budget and delay the launch two years suggests it did not trust the JPL cost and time estimates. Based on most NASA-centered projects, however, it is likely the new numbers will still be insufficient.
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NASA has given the go-ahead to build NEO-Surveyor for $1.2 billion, more than twice the cost of its original proposal, to launch by 2028 and then look for potentially dangerous asteroids.
Notably, NEO Surveyor was earlier estimated to cost between $500 million and $600 million, or around half of the new commitment. The NASA statement said that the cost and schedule commitments outlined align the mission with “program management best practices that account for potential technical risks and budgetary uncertainty beyond the development project’s control.” Earlier this year, the project’s launch was delayed two years, from 2026, due to agency budget concerns.
The mission is designed to discover 90% of potentially Earth-threatening asteroids and comets 460 feet (140 meters) or larger that come within 30 million miles (48 million kilometers) of Earth’s orbit. The spacecraft will carry out the survey while from Earth-sun Lagrange Point 1, a gravitationally stable spot in space about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) inside the Earth’s orbit around the sun.
A prediction: It will cost more, and not launch on time. NASA’s decision to double the budget and delay the launch two years suggests it did not trust the JPL cost and time estimates. Based on most NASA-centered projects, however, it is likely the new numbers will still be insufficient.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
It’s mirroring the Webb telescope program. Lowball a $500 million to win support, then upscale to over a billion. Delays and cost overruns will eventually reward you with 20x the original proposal to $10 billion.
It is not clear to me that comparisons to Webb tell us that this project will be badly managed and poorly executed. Webb is a triumph. Same with the Mars rovers. Maybe the initial low estimates on cost and time for Webb were a masterful way for project managers to work the system and get the Congress and country to fund a project that they otherwise would not.
Bob, you should start a contest to see who can guess to the closest billion on how much over budget it will go.
You say masterful, I say criminal. If someone tries that on a contract with, I will hand him his butt.
Stephen Richter said:
“Maybe the initial low estimates on cost and time for Webb were a masterful way for project managers to work the system and get the Congress and country to fund a project that they otherwise would not.”
You reverse the causation here. Like aerospace contractors, the project managers, since I first lobbied for OAO-1 in 1964, across the river in Portland, were beholden to the wishes of members of Congress. The wishes of members of Congress were to get re-elected, by voters happy in high-paying jobs, for which they were dependent on the Congress member from their district. Since OAO-1 we have seen budgets stretch and stretch again, to accommodate the political needs of congress members to have voters dependent on their incumbent status, especially in the Senate.
That is the reason that programs funded by Congress are managed with such disregard for tight budgeting, … because *Congress*wants*it*that*way*. It is Congress that has shaped space science, and space science management, just as much as they have the human spaceflight programs.