EMS receives CSA contract for new generation telescope

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has awarded a $5-million contract to EMS Technologies’ Space and Technology Group, Ottawa, for a key component of the $1.5-billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). EMS will design a fine guidance laser in partnership with COM DEV, Cambridge ON, allowing the JWST to measure positions of faint stars with considerable accuracy. The National Research Council’s Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics will continue to work with the CSA and its contractors to help with early design work and establish the Canadian contribution to the international project. The telescope’s main contractor, Northrup Grumman Space Technologies, Los Angeles CA, is scheduled to deliver the telescope to NASA for an August 2011 launch date. The JWST will have an aperture of 6.5 metres, seven times larger than that of the Hubble telescope and hundreds of times more sensitive than any other telescope. It will be stationed 1.5 million km from earth. EMS recently won a $3.5-million contract from the CSA to build an instrument to measure wind profiles in the stratosphere (R$, September 3/04)….