Hubble's successor. The goals of the James Webb Space Telescope – which will be launched in 2021 as a replacement for the famous Hubble Telescope – are to seek out the first stars and galaxies that appeared following the Big Bang and to study planetary systems and the origins of life.
2002–2004 | CSEM's teams worked on a programmable slit mask, which was intended as a backup for the Webb telescope's highly sensitive multi-object spectrograph. To function properly, the spectrograph needs to be coupled to a mask with tiny slits, which act as shutters to filter the light being analyzed. This mask allows researchers to collect the light emitted by the object they are observing while blocking out rays emitted by other stars. It can then be used to measure parameters such as total mass, temperatures or the composition of matter in the universe.
The high-precision mechanism developed by the engineers is made up of bars, guided by wheels, which are capable of withstanding the extreme conditions to which space telescopes are subjected (vibrations, cryogenic temperatures, etc.). In the end, CSEM's concept was not selected, but it paved the way for numerous mechatronic projects for a new generation of ground-based telescopes.
24 November 2023
Ekio, a start-up that emerged from the CSEM, focuses on human factors in product design. Its mission is to support companies in the development of intuitive, user-friendly products and thus close the ...
21 December 2021
After Performing 1.2 billion cycles during its operational lifetime, it is time to say a final goodbye to CSEM’s Corner Cube Mechanism (CCM) aboard the IASI instrument....
22 June 2021
Collaboration with Kistler: A new test bench accurately captures, measures, and characterizes micro-vibrations in space mechanisms....