[shantara]

I agree, and this applies to satellite manufacturing in general. Starlink has demonstrated that the new launch cadence requires a switch from single unit and small scale to serial production.

It's unbelievable that we don't currently have standard designs not just for observatories, but for communication, navigation, cartography and other satellite types. Cubesats took a step into the right direction, the same needs to happen for even larger payloads.

Another side of the problem is that NASA budget is heavily influenced by politics and PR. I'm sure there's plenty of smart people there who have realized that from purely scientific point of view, ten or twenty less capable and more disposable interplanetary probes or observatories could have advantage over unique absurdly expensive projects like JWT and Perseverance. But they are not as exciting and harder to sell to politicians and general public.