The Next Great Observatories: How Can We Get There?

Astro2020 must grapple with how flagship development should adapt to control costs and support multiple missions. We extend the cost analysis by Bitten et al. (2019) to show that 3 flagship missions costing $21B in total could launch by 2040 with cost-growth containment and an increase to the total budget of NASA Astrophysics of $1 B per year.