I’m both excited and nervous. This has been so long delayed and I keep worrying that something will go horrifically wrong.
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Go, JWST, go!
That 6 AM alarm sucked, but so worth it.
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I was awake but I didn’t watch the launch. Still, I’m relieved that it got into space successfully. Now, it just has to travel the million miles to its planned orbit and open up (a process in which, according to a video I watched has 344 things that can go wrong).
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Everyday Astronaut better have a detailed video about it.
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Here’s the video I watched:
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I meant like a deep dive into all 344 problems. 
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Oh, I see. 
I haven’t seen one like that. 
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“I got 344 problems but a complex solar shield deployment ain’t one of – oh, wait.”
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Sunshield tensioning is now complete.
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If they don’t, they should.
But the sunshield has deployed and they’re tightening it the last I checked.
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I thought I read last night or this morning that they paused the tightening temporarily.
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Sweet! All is going according to plan 
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So if I’m remembering right, the solar sail was one of the big deals. That had to go perfect or less the project was a bust. So it’s a big step in the right direction that the antenna and the sail have deployed without mishap.
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343 problems to go!
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Secondary mirror deployment is underway—live coverage here:
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Thursday update: the Aft Deployed Instrument Radiator step is complete as of this morning
Tomorrow (or thereabouts): deployment of the port primary mirror wing
An article I read yesterday said the JWST has cleared around 75% of its single-point failures. (Edit for clarity: Meaning 25% remain, not 25% have failed)
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This is the tipping point! With the successful deployment of the secondary mirror and the Aft Deployed Instrument Radiator, the JWST can now potentially function at reduced capability, something that was impossible up until this last step was achieved.
While the left and right primary mirror panels (each with three mirror segments) have yet to deploy, two-thirds of the primary mirror (twelve of the eighteen total mirror segments) is already positioned for focusing. There’s still a lot that could go wrong (knock on wood, cross fingers, eat the lucky peanuts, etc., etc.) since there’re six or seven motors per mirror segment that are needed to drive each into place from its launch position, fine tune it, and adjust its curvature, but there’s now “first light” at the end of the tunnel.
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They call this the Sylvester Stallone phase.
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