SUNNYVALE, Calif., July 13 -- A team headed by Lockheed Martin Missiles & Space has been awarded a phase-one design contract by NASA for the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST). The Lockheed Martin group, which includes Raytheon, Honeywell and Jackson and Tull, will provide NASA with management and technical approaches to NGST. The team's design for NGST will include a lightweight 8-meter-class deployable mirror.
The NGST will be a space observatory optimized for IR imaging and spectroscopy of astronomical targets. It will be launched to a location opposite the Sun, about a million miles from Earth, where it will conduct its observations in the cold of deep space. Following its scheduled launch in 2008, it will help NASA observe the first stars and galaxies to form in the Universe.