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The James Webb Space Telescope and stuff


Streetwind

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The JWST Blog talks about why they didn't add any deployment monitoring cameras to the craft. Basically, they thought it wouldn't really provide enough information to the engineers about the deployment process if something went wrong -- a lot of narrow view cameras in many places could possibly show problems (at the cost of a lot more complexity in wiring),  and wide-view cameras wouldn't show enough detail to be useful to the engineers for diagnosing problems. So not worth the added complexity.

But, I think one stratigically-placed wide angle IR camera would have provided a nice view for those of us who paid 10 Billion dollars for the thing, if it could be safely done. 

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19 minutes ago, Brotoro said:

But, I think one stratigically-placed wide angle IR camera would have provided a nice view for those of us who paid 10 Billion dollars for the thing, if it could be safely done. 

On the hot side, an IR camera would likely approach the washout of a visible light camera.  On the cold side, to see anything, the IR camera would have to be better than the JWST to see anything, as the JWST is being cooled to minimize IR noise for its instruments.

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4 hours ago, Brotoro said:

But, I think one stratigically-placed wide angle IR camera would have provided a nice view for those of us who paid 10 Billion dollars for the thing, if it could be safely done. 

Pretty sure that's the point of the whole thing ;).

 

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4 hours ago, Gargamel said:

 

Man... on her launch reaction video, I wish the she had watched until separation and the deployment of solar panels... I imagine what was her reaction to the view o JWST and if she would be worried about the early deployment

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Port wing deployment has started :)

https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/01/07/primary-mirror-deployment-has-begun/

From the blog, releasing the latches / relatching once it's in position is going to take the most time of the operation (rotation of the wing itself is only 5 minutes) - i guess they have  to operate & check that each latch worked correctly after triggering them. (Plus maybe check the port wing systems after the operation)

Edited by sgt_flyer
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1 hour ago, Admiral Fluffy said:

After watching for about 2 and 1/2 hours, I’m bored.

2.5 hours of things going nominally and you getting bored is what 10 years of careful space engineering design, preceded by formulating the proposal and selling it to get the $10billion budget, was aiming for.

It's a scientific instrument.  This is how science works.  It takes a while to get certainty.

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