The weekly federal-spending brief. One email a Sunday. Free. No tracking.
The BuildoutBeta

$486,654,377

National Aeronautics and Space Administration·National Aeronautics and Space Administration

to UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

aerospaceactive
ACTION DATE2026-05-13·SOURCEUSASPENDING·SOURCE IDCONT_AWD_GSFC0200208DNAS502105_8000_-NONE-_-NONE-
Award description

NEXT GENERATION SPACE TELESCOPE NIRCAM THE CONTRACTOR SHALL PROVIDE THE PERSONNEL, SERVICES, MATERIALS, EQUIPMENT, AND FACILITIES NEEDED TO MANAGE AND PERFORM PHASES A THROUGH E OF THE SELECTED NEAR-INFRARED CAMERA (NIRCAM) INSTRUMENT FLIGHT INVESTIGATION. THE CONTRACTOR IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ENSURING THAT ALL THE REQUIREMENTS IN THE CONTRACT ARE MET. THE CONTRACTOR SHALL PERFORM THE FOLLOWING ACTIVITIES WITHIN EACH PHASE: PHASE A: THE CONTRACTOR SHALL DEFINE THE NIRCAM SCIENCE INVESTIGATION, SCIENCE PAYLOAD, AND MISSION OPERATIONS AND DATA SYSTEMS. THE CONTRACTOR SHALL DOCUMENT ITS FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS IN A CONCEPT STUDY REPORT THAT IT SHALL PREPARE AND DELIVER TO THE GOVERNMENT. THE CONTRACTOR SHALL DEFINE AND REFINE ITS EDUCATION AND PUBLIC OUTREACH PLAN DURING PHASE A. PHASES B-D: THE CONTRACTOR SHALL DESIGN, ANALYZE, DEVELOP, FABRICATE, CALIBRATE, INTEGRATE, TEST AND DELIVER THE NIRCAM SCIENCE INSTRUMENT TO NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (NASA) GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER'S (GSFC) JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE (JWST) PROJECT. THE CONTRACTOR SHALL ALSO PLAN AND PREPARE FOR THE MISSION OPERATIONS PHASE DURING PHASES B-D. THIS SHALL INCLUDE DEVELOPING AN OPERATIONS AND CALIBRATION STRATEGY, DEFINING AND PLANNING THE GUARANTEED TIME OBSERVATIONS (GTO) SCIENCE PROGRAM, PREPARING AND TESTING GROUND SOFTWARE IN COLLABORATION WITH THE SCIENCE AND OPERATIONS CENTER, AND PARTICIPATING IN MISSION SIMULATIONS. THE CONTRACTOR SHALL EXECUTE ITS EDUCATION AND PUBLIC OUTREACH (E/PO) PLAN DURING PHASES B-D. PHASES E: THE CONTRACTOR SHALL PROVIDE THE NECESSARY PERSONNEL, SERVICES, MATERIALS, EQUIPMENT, AND FACILITIES NEEDED TO PERFORM MISSION OPERATIONS AND DATA ANALYSIS (MO&DA) ACTIVITIES. THE CONTRACTOR SHALL DIRECT THE EXECUTION OF ITS GTO SCIENCE PROGRAM DURING PHASE E. THE CONTRACTOR SHALL CONTINUE TO EXECUTE ITS E/PO PLAN DURING PHASE E.

Verbatim from USAspending.gov. Capitalization, abbreviations, and codes are unchanged.

The Buildout's read

What the model surfaced from this award

Confidence: high
In plain English

Design, develop, fabricate, and operate the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope.

Sub-sectors
space-telescope-instrumentjwst-nircamnasa-science-payload
Why this matters

NIRCam is a critical science instrument enabling JWST's infrared observations of the early universe, exoplanets, and stellar formation—foundational to U.S. space science leadership.

Supply-chain signal

Large contract to University of Arizona signals demand for specialized infrared detector manufacturing, optical systems integration, and ground software development from aerospace suppliers.

U.S.–China competition angle

JWST represents U.S. technological superiority in space-based astronomy; China is developing competing infrared space telescopes, making this investment strategically significant.

Generated by award_classification v2.0.0 via claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 on 2026-05-15. Cost: $0.002931.

Period of performance
Start
2002-07-17
End
2027-09-30
Status
activein 503 days
Other awards from this recipient
Sources

The Buildout does not edit federal records. Any inaccuracy reflects the upstream source; it will update here when corrected there.