News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Greg Robinson fixed NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, re... by throwaway6734 on Friday July 15, 2022 @03:43PM (#32111986)
Is it possible that cheaper and more frequent launches will keep and up dropping the development prices as maybe more regular launches will enable the development process to be less strict and leave more room for error?
Re:Greg Robinson fixed NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, re... by dotnet00 on Friday July 15, 2022 @05:08PM (#32112838)
That is essentially what's driving the popularity of smallsats and megaconstellations. Since launch costs are dropping and flights are becoming more regular (eg SpaceX's transporter flights, where the rocket flies regardless of payload readiness and anyone who wasn't ready just moves to another flight, eliminating the main issue from other rideshare arrangements), it's potentially cheaper to make more replaceable satellites. So far this mainly applies to Earth observation and internet constellations.

This doesn't really carry-over to large projects like JWST yet though.