Between 1993 and 2009, astronauts repaired and upgraded Hubble five times. (

The approach NASA has taken with James Webb Space Telescope, with no ability to repair or upgrade the telescope after its launch, stands in sharp contrast to what it did with JWST’s predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope. Some believe NASA should embrace servicing, and even assembly, of future space telescopes.

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Jeff Foust has more than a decade of experience writing about space policy, entrepreneurial ventures and regulatory affairs. In 2001, he established spacetoday.net to aggregate and summarize the day's space-related news stories. In 2003, he started The...