spacetoday.net: News briefs: June 11

Posted: Wed, Jun 12, 2002, 10:19 AM ET (1419 GMT)

Lockheed Martin officials are keeping a close watch on a Colorado forest fire near its rocket and spacecraft facilities in Denver. By Tuesday the Hayman fire, which had scorched thousands of hectares southwest of Denver, was about 10 km from the Waterton Canyon facility operated by Lockheed Martin in Denver's southwest suburbs. There were no immediate plans to evacuate the plant or its contents, including several Atlas and Titan launch vehicles and spacecraft under construction.
The Milky Way galaxy will undergo an intense period of star formation in a few hundred million years, SPACE.com reported. Astronomers believe that a burst of star formation in the center of the galaxy will take place 200 million years from now as a ring of gas there approaches a critical density. The star formation will include a number of giant, short-lived stars that will end as brilliant supernovae.
NASA has selected the team that will build the primary science instrument for the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST). The team, led by the University of Arizona and including Lockheed Martin, EMS Technologies, and COM DEV, will provide a near-infrared camera for the telescope. NGST, scheduled for launch in 2010, will succeed the Hubble Space Telescope and use a mirror six meters in diameter, two and a half times the size of Hubble's.