[sam-2727]

And not just disastrous for James Webb, disastrous for the possibility of future funding of space missions in the near future. Congress would be much more hesitant to fund anything as large as the James Webb in the future if it failed.

[JaimeThompson]

Not if China starts funding such things as many in the US Congress would not want China to have more advanced assets in orbit and would authorize funding to make it work.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

How much of the cost is the R&D vs. actual construction and launch?

(In other words, how expensive would be fixing an issue and trying again actually be?)

[wongarsu]

It's hard to say, but for the JWST the design and R&D seems to have been the easier part [1].

In general it's uncommon to build a replacement satellite after an issue. Either you make a backup from the start, or you start over after failure. Making a one-off component often isn't all that much simpler just because you've already done it once a decade ago (and some parts of the JWST should be about a decade old by now). And if you commit to doing that all over again, might as well update the entire design to new capabilities and requirements.

1: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/48902/are-there-an...