>>11443323More updates: as of Jan 22, they completed folding the sunshield back in after a successful test. Next they are going to do some electrical tests, shake the crap out of it to simulate launch, and then see if it deploys. If it passes the electronics tests and deployment tests they're going to fold it back up and ship it out. One sad thing is that NASA doesn't have a big enough vacuum chamber to test complete deployment of the JWST. So they have to go through some crazy subsystem testing. So why not build a bigger one? Well big cryogenic vacuum chambers are hugely expensive to build and maintain, so NASA isn't building new ones, they're just restoring the ones left over from the space race. Our infrastructure is rotting.
