It cost $10 billion to build the James Web Space Telescope, which is already proving to be a worthy successor to NASA's historic Hubble observatory.
We were surprised to see that the observatory only has about half the amount of storage of an entry-level iPhone.
That makes the telescope's observations, which include some stunning and ultra-crisp images of Jupiter, even more impressive.
It's that small that makes it sound small. The "Solid State Recorder" had to go through an extensive certification process since it's meant to endure a million miles away from Earth.
Experts predict that the telescope's usable storage will be only 60 gigabytes due to the radiation.
The telescope has opportunities several times a day to downlink that data back to Earth.
The space telescope uses the Deep Space Network to beam data back to Earth. The data transfer frequencies will be shared with other craft.
The space observatory's comms channels use a special error correction protocol which means that it will only remove the original files once it confirms the team back on.
It's crazy to think that only 60 gig of storage is needed to further our understanding of the universe.
We are not the experts who put it all together. The system is working well and we can't wait to see what it will do next.
There are data challenges with the space telescope.
There is a picture of Jupiter that can be seen on the moon.
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