In a major step toward its most ambitious planet-hunting mission yet, NASA has selected a group of industry proposals to advance critical technologies for the Habitable Worlds Observatory, a next-generation space telescope designed to search for signs of life beyond Earth.
The Habitable Worlds Observatory is envisioned as the first mission capable of directly imaging Earth-like planets orbiting Sun-like stars and analysing the chemical makeup of their atmospheres for potential biosignatures. Beyond the search for life, the mission is also expected to support broader studies of the universe and future human exploration of Mars, the solar system, and deep space.
“The Habitable Worlds Observatory is exactly the kind of bold, forward-leaning science that only NASA can undertake,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “Humanity is waiting for the breakthroughs this mission is capable of achieving and the questions it could help us answer about life in the universe. We intend to move with urgency, and expedite timelines to the greatest extent possible to bring these discoveries to the world.”
To meet its scientific goals, the observatory will require an extremely stable optical system, capable of maintaining motion smaller than the width of an atom during observations. The mission will also depend on a coronagraph that can block starlight with a performance level thousands of times more advanced than existing space-based coronagraphs. The telescope is planned to be serviceable in space, allowing upgrades and extended scientific capability over time.
To mature these technologies, NASA has awarded 3-year, fixed-price contracts to the following companies: Astroscale U.S. Inc. (Denver), BAE Systems Space and Mission Systems, Inc. (Boulder, Colorado), Busek Co. Inc. (Natick, Massachusetts), L3Harris Technologies Inc. (Rochester, New York), Lockheed Martin Inc. (Palo Alto, California), Northrop Grumman Inc. (Redondo Beach, California), and Zecoat Co. Inc. (Granite City, Illinois).
“Are we alone in the universe? is an audacious question to answer, but one that our nation is poised to pursue, leveraging the groundwork we’ve laid from previous NASA flagship missions,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. “Awards like these are a critical component of our incubator program for future missions, which combines government leadership with commercial innovation to make what is impossible today rapidly implementable in the future.”
These new awards build on earlier industry partnerships that began in 2017 under NASA’s system-level telescope design efforts and continued with large space telescope technology awards in 2024. The work will also draw on experience from the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
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