The concern is that the second stage didn’t perform as expected. What if that affects the primary mission on the next flight? They need to understand the root cause before they fly again.

As the article states, the upcoming Europa Clipper launch requires an upper stage relight to put the spacecraft on the desired trajectory. If the second burn does not go as expected, the mission could be in jeopardy.

The router on this page uses a switching regulator. Switching regulators have a relatively constant power draw over the entire input voltage range.

But just because you know the protocol dues not mean you have enough information to send a valid command. The commands are wrapped in a common protocol, but the commands themselves are typically mission-specific and definitely not made public.

Here’s an example of someone unaffiliated with the mission decoding JWST telemetry. While they were able to identify the packets defined per CCSDS protocols, they do not know the actual content of the packets, which are mission specific.

https://destevez.net/2021/12/decoding-james-webb-space-teles...

And as someone else mentioned, the biggest hurdle with getting a command to voyager is access to a 70 m dish. Not many of those floating around…

However, the ground stations are shared between many missions, so they are not available for JWST all the time. Expectation is that JWST gets 8-12 hours/day of DSN time.

JWST does not use a typical flash-based SSD. The mass storage is all SDRAM. There are layers of error correction and scrubbing to handle bit flips.

Everything was sized based on the expected volume of data that the telescope would be able to take. The instruments only generatedata at a certain rate, and there are inefficiencies involved with slewing between targets. Having a larger recorder or faster downlink would not mean that JWST could take more science data.

In reality, the antenna pointing is 'paused' during each science observation, unless pointing is needed due to the length of the observation.

The primary mitigation is to use predictions of larger events, such as meteor showers, and move the observatory to an orientation that reduces the risk of damage.

If all goes as planned, the limiting factor is propellant. And the propellant tanks have the ports for on-orbit refueling, in case there is ever a desire to develop a robotic servicing mission for the task.

https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-opportunities-and-policies/...

https://www.edn.com/what-does-selv-mean-for-power-supplies/

I doubt the USB-C power negotiation feature is specifically a safety function, but as other comments have pointed out it makes the system even safer.

I haven’t looked at the spec, but I wonder if there is any functionality that prevents a power supply from applying 48V all the time. i.e. is it possible to deliver a functional charger that is not SELV and has no power negotiation?