The JWST—identified by the National Research Council as the top priority new initiative for astronomy and physics for the current decade—is a large deployable space-based observatory being developed to study and answer fundamental questions ranging from the formation and structure of the universe to the origin of planetary systems and the origins of life. Often referred to as the replacement to Hubble, the JWST is more of a next generation telescope—one that scientists believe will be capable of seeing back to the origins of the universe (Big Bang). The JWST will have a large, segmented primary mirror—6.5 meters (about 21 feet) in diameter—which is a leap ahead in technology over the last generation of mirrors. The observatory requires a sunshield approximately the size of a tennis court to allow it to cool to the extremely cold temperature (around 40 degrees Kelvin, or minus 388 degrees Fahrenheit) necessary for the telescope and science instruments to work. The mirror and the sunshield—both critical components—must fold up to fit inside the launch vehicle and open to their operational configuration once the JWST is in orbit. In addition, the observatory will house science instruments—such as a near-infrared camera, a near-infrared spectrograph, a mid-infrared instrument, and a fine guidance sensor—to enable scientists to conduct various research activities. The JWST is an international collaboration among the United States, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). ESA will provide the near-infrared spectrograph science instrument, the optical bench assembly of the mid-infrared instrument, and the launch of the JWST by means of an Ariane 5 expendable launch vehicle. CSA’s contribution will be the fine guidance sensor to enable stable pointing. Recently, the JWST program recognized significant cost growth and schedule slippage. In March 2005, NASA identified about $1 billion cost growth, which increased the JWST’s life-cycle cost estimate from $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion. In addition, the program’s schedule slipped nearly 2 years. As a result, the program began a series of re-baselining efforts to revise its acquisition strategy. In summer 2005, NASA Headquarters chartered two independent review teams—an Independent Review Team from NASA’s Independent Program Assessment Office and a Science Assessment Team—to evaluate the program. The Independent Review Team was charged with examining the program’s new cost/schedule/ technical baseline and reported in mid-April 2006 that (1) the JWST’s scientific performance met the expectations of the science community, (2) the technical content was complete and sound, and (3) the Goddard Space Flight Center and contractor teams were effective. However, the team was concerned about the program’s early year funding constraints. The Science Assessment Team, an international team of outside experts, was established to evaluate scientific capabilities of the JWST in the 2015 time frame in light of other astronomical facilities that would be available. The team concluded that the financial savings gained from the reduction in the size of the primary mirror area would not be worth the resultant loss of scientific capabilities. The team recommended relaxing some science requirements and simplifying other aspects of the mission, such as integration and testing, to reduce the program’s cost risk. For example, the team recommended relaxing the contamination requirements, allowing the project to test the mirrors using an innovative approach that will reduce costs. The team also recommended that the JWST de-emphasize the shorter wavelengths, since other astronomical facilities would be available to cover that range. The JWST program recently revised its acquisition strategy to conform to NASA’s acquisition policies; however, the program still faces considerable challenges. GAO best practices work has found that using a knowledge- based approach is a key factor in program success. When we initiated our work and before the program’s recently revised acquisition strategy, program officials intended to have NASA commit to the program and start implementation with immature technologies, according to best practices, and without a preliminary design. During our review, we discussed these shortfalls with NASA officials, and they revised their acquisition strategy to align their decision milestones in accordance with NASA acquisition policy. While this is a good step, the current strategy does not fully incorporate a knowledge-based approach that could reduce the program’s risks by ensuring that resources match requirements at program start. By closely following a knowledge-based approach, the JWST program will increase its chances for success and better inform NASA’s decision making. The JWST contains several innovations, including lightweight optics, a deployable sunshield, and a folding segmented mirror. Although the program began risk reduction activities early to develop and mature some technologies, such as the lightweight segmented folding mirror, the program is challenged with maturing some of its other critical technologies. For example, the sunshield, which consists of five layers of membranes, must be folded for launch but then unfurled to its operational configuration—with enough tension to prevent wrinkle patterns that could interfere with the telescope’s mirrors, but not so much tension to cause tears in the fabric. The sunshield must also be aligned with the rest of the observatory so that only the top layer of the sunshield is visible to the primary mirror and a correct angle between the observatory and the sun and other heat-radiating bodies is maintained to enable the telescope and science instruments to preserve the very cold temperature—about 40 degrees Kelvin—critical for achieving the JWST’s mission. In addition, using passive cooling devices, such as heat switches, to allow specific areas of the telescope to cool down, represent additional challenges since these items will be used in new configurations. NASA also recently substituted the cryo-cooler used for the mid-infrared instrument for a lower technology component to save mass. According to JWST officials, the program recently awarded the development contract for the cryo- cooler. In addition, the micro shutter array, which will allow the JWST to program specific patterns of the electromagnetic spectrum for viewing, is a new technology being developed by the Goddard Space Flight Center and is still at a relatively low level of maturity. JWST officials acknowledge that they are concerned about maturing the cryo-cooler and the micro shutter array. In addition, the program also faces design challenges related to the launch vehicle and the observatory’s stability. For example, program officials told us that they may need to request a waiver because the telescope will not fit within the criteria limits of the launch vehicle’s envelop without making design modifications. Furthermore, due to the late selection of the launch vehicle, the project office and prime contractor are just beginning to discuss interfaces, transportation at the launch site, and the additional space issue with Ariane 5 officials. Also, the project faces the unresolved problem of finding the best way to keep the observatory stable. The large sunshield, observatory attitude changes, and other effects conspire to produce unbalanced torques, which can make the observatory unstable. The project continues to look at ways to resolve this problem, including thrusters to rebalance the observatory, but project officials say this will continue to be a challenge. Another overriding concern is NASA’s inability to test the entire observatory in its operational environment, since there is no test facility in the United States large enough to perform this test. The plan is to incrementally test components and subsystems on the ground in laboratories simulating the observatory’s operational environment and to make extensive use of modeling and simulation. According to the memorandum summarizing the January 2006 System Definition Review, a key concern is that the JWST is pushing the limits of ground test facilities and cannot be tested at the observatory level; therefore, requiring complicated integration and testing with a series of subsystem tests and analyses. In its April 2006 assessment of the JWST program, the Independent Review Team reported that there are several exceptions to the “test as you fly” guideline and that mitigation strategies need to be developed before the end of the preliminary design phase. In March 2005, the JWST program recognized that its cost had grown by about $1 billion, increasing the JWST’s life-cycle cost estimate from $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion. About half of the cost growth was due to schedule slippage—a 1-year schedule slip because of a delay in the decision to use an ESA-supplied Ariane 5 launch vehicle and an additional 10-month slip caused by budget profile limitations in fiscal years 2006 and 2007. More than a third of the cost increase was caused by requirements and other changes. An increase in the program’s contingency funding accounted for the remainder—about 12 percent—of the growth. Despite an increase in the program’s contingency funding, the Independent Review Team found that the contingency funding is still inadequate. In its April 2006 assessment of the JWST program’s re- baselining, the Independent Review Team expressed concern over the program’s contingency funding, stating that it is too low and phased in too late. According to the team, the program’s contingency from 2006 through 2010 of only $29 million, or about 1.5 percent, after “liens” and “threats” is inadequate. The team also stated that a 25 percent to 30 percent total contingency is appropriate for a program of this complexity. The program’s total contingency is only about 19 percent. The team warned that because of the inadequate contingency, the program’s ability to resolve issues, address program risk areas, and accommodate unknown problems is very limited. Therefore, the team concluded that from a budget perspective, the re-baselined program is not viable for a 2013 launch.