Barr Associates To Provide Filters For The James Webb Space Telescope Near Infrared Camera

Barr Associates, Inc. has recently been selected by Lockheed Martin to provide filters for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Near InfraRed Camera (NIRCam). NIRCam is a filter-based instrument covering the spectral range of 0.6 to 5.0 microns. The Principle Investigator for NIRCam is Dr. Marcia Reike of the University of Arizona, while the manufacture, integration and testing will be handled by the Advanced Technology Center (ATC) of Lockheed Martin. Barr is responsible for the design, manufacture and testing of the full compliment of 30 filters. Barr has a strong heritage in providing space flight filters and a long association with Lockheed Martin ATC including programs as recent as Solar-B (2006 launch) and going back to shuttle glow experiments (1982).

The Near InfraRed Camera is the primary imager used in the JWST and will also be used for a critical wave front sensing function to ensure the various main mirror segments are precisely aligned. It is one of four primary science instruments on the JWST. Special features of the NIRCam filters, in addition to their space qualification, include high quality transmitted wave-front, spectral performance and cryogenic operation. The current Barr effort is an extension of earlier development and production of high performance flight filters for several Hubble Space Telescope instruments including Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC 2), Advanced Camera for Survey (ACS), and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC 3) as well as filter development in support of over 100 other space flight instruments over the past thirty years. JWST is scheduled for launch in 2013 and will be able to bestow further insights into the history of earlier galaxies, linking the Big Bang to the Milky Way Galaxy.

SOURCE: Materion