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[music]

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To make use of every square

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inch of available space

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on board satellites,

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engineers have had to design

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extremely small, lightweight,

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highly reliable parts.

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To reduce the need for physical storage space of magnetic tapes, engineers designed microelectronics to process data on orbit as the satellite gathered it.

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In order to design and implement

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a computer sophisticated enough

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to accomplish this,

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a large number of parts

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had to be housed

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in a very small area or volume.

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Microelectronics allowed us to get

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as many as 2000 electronic components

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into a very small silicon

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integrated circuit.

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The ability to open and close

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over 62,000 individual

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little doors

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is really what is enabling

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some of the science

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for the James Webb Space Telescope.

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Each individual shutter

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is 100 by 200 microns,

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or about the size of a few hairs.

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There are four arrays, each

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with 62,000 shutters,

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meaning the entire instrument has

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just over a quarter of a million shutters.