Canada, NASA Cooperating on North American Space Project

In a press release published by NASA on Monday, the U.S. space agency said that it will be teaming with Canada to construct the James Webb Space Telescope. A ceremony that was held on Monday at NASA's headquarters in Washington, DC, made the agreement official.

The telescope is going to be the successor to the American Hubble Space Telescope and is slated to be launched into its orbit in space in 2013.

CSA (the Canadian Space Agency) will be providing the fine guidance sensors that will make it possible for the space-based telescope to focus on distant stars and get clear photographs with unprecedented sharp detail of those celestial bodies.

Northrop Grummen Space Technology has been working on the James Webb development since 2003, which was previously known as the NGST (Next Generation Space Telescope). The telescope's mirror will be lighter in weight but larger than the one currently used by the Hubble.

NASA and CSA are planning for the JWST to carry a near-infrared camera, a multi-object spectrometer, and a mid-infrared camera/spectrometer.

The Hubble was a revolutionary new space telescope when it was first put into orbit above Earth and therefore above the distorting atmospheric elements of Earth's atmosphere in 1991. It has brought us unprecedented photographs of distant stars, planets, and galaxies. However, the Hubble has been relatively close to the Earth, partly so that repairs could be made to it if necessary.

The JWST will be situated 940,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) out in space, at a celestial place known as the Lagrange Point 2 (L2). It is in this region of space where the spacecraft is fully deployed, set for action, and held stable by being balanced between the gravity of the Sun and that of the Earth. That balance of gravitational pull at the L2 point shall allow the JWST to keep pace with the Earth as it orbits the Sun.

At that distance, astronauts couldn't service the telescope because it would be too far away from human or tele-robotic touch.