NASA cancels space telescope mission

NASA is canceling all work on a new space telescope designed to seek out black holes and other cosmic mysteries through X-ray light due to soaring development costs, the space agency announced. The mission, called Gravity and Extreme Magnetism Small Explorer (GEMS), was running significantly over budget, said Paul Hertz, director of NASA's Astrophysics Division, during a phone call to reporters today. "The GEMS project was initiated under a very well-defined cost cap," Hertz said. "As they approached their confirmation review, it was clear they would not be able to complete it within their cost cap. NASA made the very difficult decision not to confirm GEMS into the implementation phase." "Although there aren't any other projects in the queue right now to measure polarized X-ray sources, there are a number of observatories which can address the science questions from different areas," including NASA's NuSTAR space mission, due to launch June 13, Hertz said. The main factor behind the cost overrun was the trickiness of developing the technology needed for the mission, he said. "The instrument technology was more difficult and took longer than they had originally estimated," Hertz said. "That delayed their ability to get started on the rest of their schedule."(QNA)