Senator Chuck Schumer was in Rochester Tuesday to announce new jobs and projects at Harris Corporation.
Schumer was pushing for funding for NASAs WFIRST mission, which stands for Wire Field Infrared Survey Telescope.
Parts of the telescope are being built at Harris. He said the telescope would be used to explore dark energy and its implications for the universe.
"It will have the same image precision as the Hubble Telescope which was the previous one but will see 100 times larger area further out than Hubble. That is the advantage of this. So it will do things like measure exploding stars."
Congress will decide on whether or not to pass the $352 million funding by Christmas.
Harris also announced that they would be hiring 50 new contract workers due to a new military radio contract, as well as adding 140 new full-time positions.
They said they would also be investing $90 million in their Rochester facilities for research and development purposes.