29 Days on the Edge
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)Cited 3× on HN, 2021–2022
documentary · general · 2021–2022 on HN
A NASA video on the 29 days after the James Webb Space Telescope's launch, when thousands of parts must deploy in sequence on the way to its destination a million miles away.
Cited as an overview of JWST's complex deployment and its many single points of failure.
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3 comments from Hacker News
I wonder if there are some aliens looking at this, and wondering if another advanced civilization has put this together (just like we were wondering with ʻOumuamua). To me James Webb looks definitely like alien technology, if it manages to pass 50 deployment stages, depending on 178 deployment mechanisms... The team working on this did an incredible job! ▶ this video
JWST has something like 300 SPOFs in the deployment phase. Then there are operation issues; the MIRI cryocooler has had a long, troubled development history. Three weeks ago NASA put out a Hollywood production quality disclaimer video[1]. [1] ▶ this video
After watching an official JWST video ▶ this video , they seem almost proud of having several hundred of single points of failure and an immensely complex deployment process that takes several weeks and must work perfectly. I don't know what engineer could be proud of coming up with a design like that.