How The World's Largest Space-Based Telescope Is Better Than ...

REDONDO BEACH, Calif. -- Northrop Grumman (NOC) and NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which will be launched next year, will probe deeper and see more than its predecessor, the Hubble.

XAutoplay: On | OffLockheed Martin's (LMT)Hubble has returned mind-blowing images of black holes and nebulae since its launch in 1990 while producing breakthroughs in how we understand the universe, but researchers needed a more advanced system to probe further into space, especially to see how early stars and galaxies formed.

"NASA wanted something that answered two questions: Are we alone in the universe and where did we come from?" said Scott Willoughby, telescope program manager for Webb prime contractor Northrop, in a recent interview.

The Webb telescope will be 100 times more sensitive than the Hubble, thanks to its 18 hexagonal mirrors, built by Ball Aerospace. Each mirror is over four feet across, forming a primary mirror 21.3 feet across. Hubble's primary mirror is just under eight feet across.

The Webb telescope can also fix itself, unlike the Hubble, which required astronauts to fix the focus it a few years after launching in 1990. But because the Webb will be a million miles from Earth vs. the Hubble's 300-mile distance, a similar repair job won't be possible.

Willoughby said the Webb has seven motors on its mirrors to "change the prescription" of the lenses and it takes just seconds to move the mirrors and change the focus.

And unlike the Hubble, the Webb will capture infrared light, as its giant mirrors will be protected from picking up heat and light from the sun.

Northrop built five massive sun shields from Kapton, a film made by Dupont (DD) that won't distort in the extreme cold of outer space.

"The material has been used on smaller applications, but this is the first time it will be used as a giant umbrella application," Willoughby said.

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Shares of Northrop were down 0.2% on the stock market today but still above buy range. Webb subcontractors Orbital ATK (OA) and Harris (HRS) were down 1.4% and 0.2%, respectively

IBD'S TAKE:Northrop, Lockheed and Raytheon are already past their buy points. But fastener distributor and logistics services leader KLX could be ready to break out.

On Monday, Northrop said that all five of the telescope's sun shield layers have been installed and fully integrated, and the company is now folding the 70-by-40-foot sheets to fit into an Ariane 5 rocket in time for deployment tests scheduled for later this month.

The telescope is scheduled for an October 2018 launch from French Guiana. It will take six months for the telescope to unfurl its sun shields and mirrors, calibrate its instruments, cool down and reach its destination. Then the research can begin.

One of the first missions will be taking a closer look at three planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system, which was discovered last year and could have the right conditions to support life.

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