I think like they said, it's people. The JWST has "17 different modes" (yeah, I wish I knew what that meant exactly), but it sounds complicated. For all our tech, the bottom line is it requires humans to calibrate this thing and keep it that way (or one of 17 different ways) depending on the science that needs done.
magicalhippo|7 months ago
It's explained in the user documentation[1]. You did read the documentation right?
For example[2]:
JWST Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) has 5 observing modes: imaging, coronagraphy, grism wide field slitless spectroscopy, time-series imaging, and grism time series.
With further details for each in subsections.
[1]: https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/
[2]: https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-near-infrared-camera/nircam...
mastermage|7 months ago