NASA announced Friday that it has selected three industry proposals to help develop technologies for future space telescopes and plan for the agency’s Habitable Worlds Observatory mission concept, which could be the first space telescope designed to search for life. outside our solar system.
The mission would directly image Earth-like planets around stars like our Sun and study their atmospheres for the chemical signatures of life, as well as enable other probes about our solar system and universe. NASA is currently in the early stages of planning for this mission concept, with community-wide working groups exploring its fundamental science goals and how best to pursue them. The agency is also in the process of establishing a Habitable Earth Observatory Technology Maturation project office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“The Habitable Worlds Observatory will be a historically ambitious mission, so we are taking a deliberate strategic approach to its development and laying the groundwork now. We will need to bring together diverse expertise from government, academia and industry, building on the technologies and lessons learned from our previous large space telescopes,” said Mark Clampin, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “With these awards, we are excited to engage the industry to help close the technology gaps to make this groundbreaking mission a reality.”
In January 2024, NASA solicited industry proposals to help advance key technologies that will eventually be needed for the Habitable Worlds Observatory. For example, the mission will require a coronagraph—an instrument that blocks a star’s light so we can better see nearby objects—thousands of times more capable than any previous space coronagraph, and a stable optical system that it moves no more than the width of an atom during its observations.
To help further the readiness of these technologies, NASA has now selected the following proposals for two-year, fixed-price contracts with a combined value of $17.5 million, targeted to begin in late summer 2024:
- “Ultra Stable Telescope Research and Analysis – Critical Technologies (ULTRA-CT)”
- This project will focus on high-fidelity modeling and demonstrations of subsystems to support the future development of “ultra-stable” optical systems beyond current high-end technologies.
- Principal Investigator: Laura Coyle, Ball Aerospace (now BAE Systems)
- “Maturity of Technology for Astrophysics Space Telescopes (TechMAST)”
- This project aims to advance the integrated modeling infrastructure required to navigate design interdependencies and compare potential mission design options.
- Principal Investigator: Alain Carrier, Lockheed Martin
- “STABLE: Systems Technologies for the Architecture Base”
- This project will focus on maturing technologies that support telescope features, such as a deployable barrier and a structure to support the optical train, mitigating system impact or environmental concerns.
- Principal Investigator: Tiffany Glassman, Northrop Grumman
This work will continue the industry involvement begun in 2017 under NASA’s System-Level Segmented Telescope Design requirement, which was completed in December 2023. Selected new proposals will help inform the approach of NASA on planning for the Habitable Worlds Observatory as the agency builds on technology from its James Webb Space Telescope and the future Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and identifies where future investments are needed.
To learn more about NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory, visit:
https://go.nasa.gov/HWO
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Alice Fisher
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-2546
[email protected]
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Image Source : www.nasa.gov
