14 DAY TRIAL // Officials at the Northrop Grumman Corporation announce that they have just received the first flight recorder that will go on the NASA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The instrument was built by Centennial, Colorado-based SEAKR Engineering, Inc.
The flight recorder is a solid-state electronics unit that will capture an important portion of the science and engineering data produced by the next-generation telescope. The JWST is currently scheduled to launch no earlier than 2018.
“All the digital data Webb gathers about our universe, as it was 13.5 billion years ago, is stored on the onboard solid state recorder until it is delivered to the world's scientists,” JWST program manager and Northrop Aerospace Systems vice-president, Scott Willoughby, explains.
This telescope will be the largest, most advanced piece of equipment ever delivered to space. It will be able to see as far back into the Universe as the first light that ever shone after the Big Bang. Its main drawback is its $8.8 billion price tag.