American manufacturing is critical to the development of NASA’s
scientific instruments, satellites and telescopes – specifically
the James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope, often referred to
as JWST, will be the premier observatory of the next decade,
studying every phase in the history of our universe from the
first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of
solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth,
to the evolution of our own solar system. In order to observe
these cosmic wonders, numerous technologies have been developed
here on Earth by American manufacturers. The heart of the
telescope is its primary imager, an infrared camera that will,
among other things, detect light from the earliest stars and
galaxies in the process of formation. The Near Infrared Camera
(NIRCam) is equipped with coronagraphs, instruments that allow
astronomers to take pictures of very faint objects around a
central bright object, like stellar systems. Built by the
University of Arizona and Lockh