JWST Survives a 344-Point Deployment Challenge on 1 Kilowatt of Power

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, parked at the Sun-Earth L2 point about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, runs on roughly 1 kilowatt of power (with a solar array near 2 kW) and weathered a critical deployment sequence with 344 single-point failures—mostly tied to sunshield and mirror deployment. By January 2022, 295 of these were retired, leaving 49 primarily propulsion-related items. All 107 sunshield release devices fired and the 155 motors for aligning 18 hexagonal mirror segments operated, enabling Webb to begin its infrared observations with a remarkably power-efficient design.