29 Days on the Edge
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited as an overview of JWST's complex deployment and its many single points of failure.
What it is
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.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2021 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Cites topspin · 2021-12 · on “The $11B Webb telescope aims to probe the early universe”
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]
Cites MichaelMoser123 · 2022-01 · on “James Webb is fully deployed”
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]
Critical shantara · 2021-11 · on “An “incident” with the James Webb Space Telescope has occurred”
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.