Engineers at Lockheed Martin (Bethesda, MD, USA) have completed the assembly of the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), the prime near-infrared imaging instrument for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

The work was performed at the Lockheed Martin Space Systems Advanced Technology Center (ATC; Palo Alto, CA, USA) where environmental testing is about to begin. Engineers at the University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ, USA) and Lockheed Martin are responsible for the design of the NIRCam as well as the instrument control and focal plane electronics and software.

NIRCam is the primary near infrared imaging instrument on JWST. It will detect light from the earliest stars and galaxies in the process of formation, young stars in the Milky Way, physical and chemical properties of planets orbiting other stars and objects within the Solar System.  

In addition to Lockheed Martin and the University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ, USA), the NIRCam development team also includes engineers at Teledyne Imaging Sensors (Camarillo, CA, USA) who are responsible for the development of the two identical optical imaging modules and focal plane assemblies (FPAs) in the instrument.

The NIRCam instrument is expected to be delivered to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in the summer.

More information on the NIRCam can be found here.

-- by Dave Wilson, Senior Editor, Vision Systems Design