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New
Release -- Superconductor Week does not edit or endorse the following
news release:
NASA Picks Contractor to Chill Space Telescope
Instrument
Pasedena, CA, Apr. 6:
NASA has awarded a subcontract to
Northrop Grumman
Space Technology in Redondo Beach, Calif., to develop an ultra-cold
mechanical helium cryocooler for the Mid-Infrared Instrument on the James Webb
Space Telescope. The contract totals about $22 million.
NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., is the U.S. partner in developing the
instrument, along with a European consortium sponsored by the European Space
Agency. With a planned 2013 launch, the Webb Space Telescope will study the
earliest galaxies and some of the first stars formed after the Big Bang. The
cryocooler delivery date is 2010.
The Mid-Infrared Instrument must be cooled to 6 Kelvin (minus 449 degrees
Fahrenheit), much colder than the planned 40 Kelvin (minus 388 Fahrenheit)
temperature of the Webb Space Telescope. This will allow the instrument to
detect room temperature heat emitted by stars, galaxies and other objects.
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., manages the James Webb Space
Telescope for NASA. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages
JPL for NASA.
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