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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope faces potential 20% budget cut
Such a dramatic cut to a flagship space telescope still in its prime will be felt across the mission's entire operations, affecting science.
Lawmakers with the House Appropriations Committee proposed cancelling the mission in 2011, a decade before Webb's Christmas Day launch in 2021, only to back down after backlash from scientists and influential politicians defending the observatory. Its infrared optics have looked deep into the universe's past, observed distant galaxies and exoplanets, and even peered at our own local solar system planets closer to home. The impacts would be felt across teams that review proposals for observing targets, data analysis, observatory efficiencies, and anomaly resolution when something goes wrong, not to mention the need to engage with the scientific community and public on Webb's science results.
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