Exploring the Traveling Salesman Problem with the James Webb Space Telescope

How do you decide which stars the world's most expensive telescope looks at? This video introduces the Traveling Salesman Problem and some basic algorithms to solve it, attitude control and momentum management on the James Webb Space Telescope, and some key concepts of all optimization problems.

Become a Patreon member: https://www.patreon.com/PhysicsfortheBirds

0:00 Intro
1:36 The Traveling Salesman Problem
6:08 Webb Momentum Management
9:41 Using the Universe as a Computer

Thank you to Caleb Birtwistle for captioning!

Circuit Board Drilling: https://www.zib.de/groetschel/pubnew/paper/groetscheljuengerreinelt1991.pdf
Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21965161/
JWST Solar Panels: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13208
JWST Heat Shield: https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasas-webb-sunshield-stacks-up-to-test
JWST Momentum Overview: https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-observatory-hardware/jwst-momentum-management
JWST Observation Planning:
https://www.stsci.edu/largefiles/iwpss/20069181556rager-giuliano.pdf
https://www.aaai.org/Papers/ICAPS/2007/ICAPS07-021.pdf
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=08081b3eee9e7911c93cbe06052cdfef6c4f71a3
http://robotics.estec.esa.int/i-SAIRAS/isairas2010/PAPERS/120-2857-p.pdf