Canadian Companies to Build Sensor for NASA Telescope

Canadian companies to build sensor for NASA telescope

OTTAWA, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) — Two Canadian companies will help build a key component of the nest telescope of US National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA), Canadian Space Agency said in a press release Friday.

The US space agency plans to launch the James Webb Space Telescope in 2011. Astronomers hope the telescope will help them learn more about the first stars and quasars in the early universe, as well as the formation of stars and planets in nearby galaxies.

The Canadian Space Agency awarded a contract of 5 million US dollars to EMS Technologies of Ottawa and Com Dev of Cambridge in Ontario Province to design a fine-guidance sensor for the telescope and a tunable filter camera.

“This major new observatory will take over where Hubble, Spitzer and other space telescopes leave off,” said Virendra Jha, the Canadian Space Agency’s vice-president of science, technologies and programs.

The fine-guidance sensor will give extremely accurate measurements of the position of faint stars, Jha said.