The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has awarded Montreal based Nüvü Camēras $1 million to continue the development of technologies for the exploration of exoplanets.
The contract is the second award from the CSA procurement notice for seven priority technologies (PT) announced last November and covers PT 3, Enabling Technologies for the Exploration of New Worlds – technologies for future payload opportunities.
Earlier this month ABB was awarded a $2.25 million PT 1 contract from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) for the Cosmological Advanced Survey Telescope for Optical and UV Research (CASTOR) concept.
The other five priority technologies that should be awarded soon are;
- PT 2 – Enabling Technologies for the Exploration of New Worlds – microsatellite opportunity
- PT 4 – Mass and Volume Reduction for Planetary Exploration Instrument
- PT 5 – SAR High Speed On-Board Processing
- PT 6 – Cloud-computing for Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) processing
- PT 7 – Block Chaining in service of Earth Observation Big Data
Enabling technologies for the exploration of exoplanets
Nüvü Camēras is known for developing world class low light cameras and last fall they were selected by NASA to contribute to the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, formerly known as the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope.
The Roman Space Telescope includes two instruments: one that examines dark energy distribution in space, and a dedicated exoplanet imaging camera called the Coronagraph Imager (CGI). The CGI will have two high-sensitivity cameras with electronic cores developed by ABB and Nüvü. The imager includes components that blocks out a star’s light, making it easier for the cameras to see reflected light off nearby planets.
The CSA is continuing to fund exoplanet technology development “that would enable Canada to make a significant contribution to exoplanet science.” That contribution would be for unspecified future mission.
Nüvü Camēras will follow the following outlined scope of work for the contract.
“This technology development opportunity addresses optical and related technologies including: optics, active optics, sensing, imaging or non-imaging detectors (including but not limited to: Near Infrared (NIR) to near UV, any format, high speed, high efficiency), readout electronics, elements of spectrometers and or polarimeters. The technology proposed must be demonstrated as leading to or required for future exoplanet science from space.”