Researchers from the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics are helping lead efforts to plan NASA’s next-generation large space telescope—an astrophysics flagship mission that could reveal whether inhabited planets exist beyond our solar system. They’ll be attending and presenting at the “Towards the Habitable Worlds Observatory” conference this week in Washington, D.C.
The Habitable Worlds Observatory will be the first space telescope specifically designed to identify habitable, Earth-like planets orbiting stars similar to our Sun and examine them for evidence of life.
“Its high-level goal is to answer the question: “Are we alone?” said astrophysicist Kevin France, a CU Boulder professor in Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences and LASP researcher who is a member of both the HWO Technology & Science Organizing Committee and the HWO Community Science and Instrument Technology (CSIT) team.
The HWO is designed to measure the atmospheres of Earth-like exoplanets in the “Goldilocks zone”—the region around stars with temperatures “just right” to host liquid water. HWO will scan exoplanet atmospheres for the presence or absence of certain chemical signatures that can be produced by biological activity, such as oxygen molecules.
“In many ways, HWO is a ‘super-Hubble Space Telescope’ that achieves roughly 100 times the sensitivity and discovery space for astrophysics, while being designed to search for and characterize Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars,” said France. “The potential for discovery is enormous.”
LASP’s long legacy of instrument design
“LASP has worked incredibly hard, in partnership with our government and industry partners, to advance the technologies that will allow us to better understand our cosmos, and humanity’s place in it,” said LASP Interim Director Frank Eparvier. “Innovation, research, and workforce development from university labs like LASP are critical in the success of ambitious missions like the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, and the future Habitable Worlds Observatory.”
The HWO meeting, taking place at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington D.C., is the next step in planning this ambitious observatory and will feature several LASP scientists and engineers. France will also chair a session and speak on a panel discussing how the telescope will be maintained in space. “Similar to Hubble, it will also be serviceable,” France said, “which should enable the mission to stay on the cutting edge of astronomy and planetary science for decades.”
Innovative astrophysics technology
Fleming, an innovator in astrophysical CubeSat technology, was invited to give a plenary presentation, entitled “Emerging Technologies and Designs for Far-UV Integral-Field Spectroscopy on HWO.” LASP astrophysics researchers Emily Farr and Dmitry Vorobiev will be among the hundreds of scientists attending the conference in-person, where the overwhelming number of registrants prompted the need for additional viewing rooms, as well as online access. Additionally, more than 500 abstracts were submitted for the 150 slots available for talks and posters, showing the “very broad and deep community support for the mission,” France said.
LASP has been advancing the HWO mission in several key ways. In June, France was named to the HWO CSIT, a group of 15 professionals from academic and nonprofit institutions who will work with NASA’s HWO Technology Maturation Project Office to develop the primary science objectives, science instrument concepts, and requirements for the mission. The small group, selected from around 140 senior applicants, will guide the mission to its Mission Confirmation review in 2029.
In addition, LASP, which has a long heritage of ultraviolet space instrument development, has been developing technologies in support of HWO’s mission in the form of astrophysics sounding rockets and CubeSat missions. CUTE, the Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment, which was the first ultraviolet astrophysics CubeSat ever launched, has inspired follow-on missions such as SPRITE (Supernova remnants and Proxies for Reionization Testbed Experiment), launching in October 2025 to study the early universe, and MANTIS (Monitoring Activity from Nearby sTars with uv Imaging and Spectroscopy), scheduled for launch in 2027 to observe exoplanet atmospheres in the full ultraviolet spectrum. These missions are utilizing technologies developed during the LUVOIR study—particularly a specialized mirror coating used on SPRITE—that are now likely to play a role in the future HWO.
The Habitable Worlds Observatory is expected to launch in the late 2030s.
By LASP Communications Staff
Founded a decade before NASA, the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder is revolutionizing human understanding of the cosmos. LASP is deeply committed to inspiring and educating the next generation of space explorers. From the first exploratory rocket measurements of Earth’s upper atmosphere to trailblazing observations of every planet in the solar system, LASP continues to build on its remarkable history with a nearly $1 billion portfolio of new research and engineering programs.
