A Northrop Grumman-led industry team has secured the National Aeronautic Association’s Robert J. Collier Trophy in recognition of its work on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The company said Thursday it partnered with L3Harris Technologies, Ball Aerospace, Raytheon Technologies and NeXolve on the space deployable telescope, which launched in December 2021. Northrop led the design, […] More

Northrop Grumman will conduct phase E operations and maintenance work on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope under a $31.2 million contract. The company will check JWST systems performance, perform flight software updates and make safety recommendations as part of the cost-plus-fixed-fee contract, the space agency said Thursday. Services under the sole-source award are scheduled to […] More

L3Harris Technologies-assembled mirrors onboard the James Webb Space Telescope have produced the orbiting observatory’s first focused image of an ancient star from space. The Melbourne, Florida-headquartered company said Tuesday the milestone proved the operational effectiveness of the Optical Telescope Element, an 18-mirror system integrated and tested in simulated space conditions by its engineers. Described as […] More

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has chosen Microsoft’s Azure Quantum cloud ecosystem to speed up the scheduling of spacecraft communications. The company’s Azure Quantum team created a product designed to address JPL’s scheduling issues associated with the Deep Space Network, which NASA uses to communicate with spacecraft, Anita Ramanan, a senior software engineer for the Azure […] More

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 […] More

The James Webb Space Telescope built by a Northrop Grumman-led industry team for NASA lifted off Saturday aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from the European Space Agency’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The telescope separated from the rocket about 30 minutes after launch to mark the start of a two-week deployment process to prepare for […] More

NASA has announced the completion of three testing milestones for its James Webb Space Telescope as the agency prepares for the observatory’s launch later this year aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. The agency said Thursday one of the milestones is the final testing of the space telescope’s deployable tower assembly, which separates the mirrors and […] More

Ball Aerospace has delivered a camera lens assembly to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California for installation into a ground telescope intended to observe astronomical phenomena and provide a visualization of the universe.

More

Northrop Grumman facilitated the thermal vacuum testing of a NASA spacecraft element designed to support a space science observatory. James Webb Space Telescope’s spacecraft element was subjected to extreme temperatures during the trial in Redondo Beach, Calif., the company said Thursday.

More

Executive Mosaic is pleased to introduce Jim Bridenstine, administrator of NASA, as an inductee into the 2019 Wash100 — Executive Mosaic’s annual selection of the most influential voices in the government contracting arena — for leading space exploration, weather forecasting research and the security of U.S. satellites. This honor marks the first Wash100 Award win for Bridenstine.

More

Jason Kalirai, formerly project scientist and strategic development lead at the Space Telescope Science Institute, has joined Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory as mission area executive for civil space programs. APL said Thursday Kalirai is responsible for the lab’s work on NASA and international space missions that include exploration, research, technology development and spacecraft and scientific instrument production. […] More

Northrop Grumman and NASA have demonstrated the operability of electrical interfaces between two key components of the James Webb Space Telescope. The Optical Telescope element/Integrated Science instrument module and Spacecraft element demonstration marked as the first integration and testing effort ahead of an observatory-level evaluation that will begin once the system is fully integrated, Northrop […] More