Naomi Cooper
NASA has equipped its newly launched James Webb Space Telescope with an advanced infrared camera from Lockheed Martin to support the telescope’s mission to see the universe’s oldest light.
The Near Infrared Camera serves as Webb’s primary imager that will sense incoming infrared light to help the telescope align an array of 18 mirror segments and take science images throughout the entire mission, the aerospace and defense company said Saturday.
Lockheed partnered with researchers from the University of Arizona to design, build and test NIRCam at the company’s Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, California.
The camera was fully installed on the telescope in 2014 after undergoing a series of engineering and tests for more than a decade.
Webb, built by a Northrop Grumman-led industry team, launched Saturday aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from the European Space Agency’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
