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I'm not arguing you could completely go away with single points of failure when designing a spacecraft while being limited by the payload mass and volume. But t
by shantara 5y ago
I'm not arguing you could completely go away with single points of failure when designing a spacecraft while being limited by the payload mass and volume. But the whole JWST unfolding sequence looks like a way too risky gamble to me. Maybe, it was worthwhile to sacrifice some of the scientific payload mass to add more redundancies into the solar shield design and increase the chances the telescope would be able to reach the beginning of its observation process.
There's also the whole "what if we could avoid mass and volume constraints" tangent, that was discussed in the yesterday's Starship article, but it's more of a theoretical consideration for now.
- jdmichal 5y agoHonestly, I thought the same about the whole Perseverance landing sequence on Mars. But now it's done, and the rover is running around doing its thing. So, what I learned is that single points of failure on initial deployment -- which by definition only has to run once -- is a drastically different cost vs risk calculation than something that happens during normal operations.
- idlewords 5y agoThe unfolding sequence looked complicated to me, too, and then I remembered I am just a guy online. You are right that a magical rocket could solve many of NASAs problems (just launch ten Webbs and use the ones that don't work as sunshades for the rest!) but I think NASA is being pretty practical in not waiting for one to be invented.