
The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which was scheduled for October 2018, will be delayed five to eight months because integration and testing are taking longer than expected, a NASA official said Dec. 6.The liftoff of the $8.8 billion, Northrop Grumman [NOC]-built observatory is now expected to occur sometime between March and June of 2019, said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate, who testified before the House Science, Space and Technology Committee’s space panel. The delay…