MONTREAL, 26 Sept. 2005. EMS Technologies, Inc. announced today that it has received, through its Space & Technology/Montreal Division, a contract from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) for the detailed design of a fine guidance sensor (FGS) and a tunable filter for NASA's next-generation space telescope.
The FGS supplied by EMS will be critical to the success of the mission -- it will track the positions of distant stars to extremely high accuracy, enabling fine pointing of the overall James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observatory so that the remaining scientific instruments may be able to generate very high quality images.
Once launched, in 2013, JWST will peer into the past to greater distances than ever before. It is expected to be able to observe the formation of some of the first stars and galaxies in the universe, close to the beginning of time. With an aperture diameter of 6.5 meters, the surface of JWST's main mirror will be more than seven times larger than Hubble's, and hundreds of times more sensitive to the near-infrared light than any other telescope.
This job builds on decades of heritage in space science instruments and in advanced optics for space. The equipment will be manufactured in the Space & Technology Division's Ottawa facility.
EMS Technologies, Inc. is a leading innovator in the design and manufacture of wireless, satellite and defense solutions, and focuses its unique range of advanced technologies on the needs of broadband and mobile information users. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, has approximately 1,800 workers worldwide, and operates manufacturing facilities in Atlanta, Ottawa, Montreal and Brazil. For more information, see www.ems-t.com.
