Yesterday, the most advanced space telescope ever built, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) took a number of pictures of the universe, and showed a variety of details that were previously invisible to the naked eye.
Today, more details on the operation of the satellite have been shared by IEEE Spectrum which says that it comes with only 68GB of SSD storage built -in. More interestingly, due to space radiation and the 24/7 operation of this SSD, JWST which will be operating for 10 years expects that the storage will only have 60GB of storage by the end of its mission.
The amount of 68GB of storage in an SSD is not that big, but the satellite uses Ka-band frequency transmission that can transmit data to earth at a rate of 28Mbps. The satellite also uses S-band frequency beams to download and upload engineering data and updates on the satellite’s movement and direction.
In fact, the storage used for this mission is not storage bins. This SSD, called the Solid State Recorder is built specifically to withstand radiation from outer space. This is because such radiation can cause physical damage to various electronic equipment quickly if not developed properly.
If you are interested in learning more about how this James Webb Space Telescope works, you can go to the IEEE website via this link.