NASA NTRS · 20260005961
The Habitable Worlds Observatory Technology Development Plan
Abstract
The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is NASA’s next large space telescope, selected by the 2020 Decadal Survey in Astronomy and Astrophysics to search for and characterize habitable exoplanets while enabling a broad range of transformative astrophysics. In August 2024, the HWO Technology Maturation Project Office (TMPO) was formed to begin exploring the HWO science, technology, and mission architectures toward a Mission Concept Review (MCR) at the end of the decade. A primary deliverable of this effort is a technology development plan that identifies critical technologies that enable the mission, defines a process for assessing the readiness of those technologies, and outlines a strategy for developing those technologies to a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 5 before the MCR. In this paper we summarize the HWO technology development plan which comprises three “tracks”: Coronagraph System technologies, Ultra-stable Telescope System technologies, and High-sensitivity Ultraviolet and Visible Instrumentation technologies. Each track has completed an initial assessment of technology gaps, prioritized the gaps for investment, and laid out development roadmaps to mature candidate technologies to close those gaps.
Keep this discovery
Matthew R Bolcar, Feng Zhao, Paul Scowen, Breann Sitarski, Lee Feinberg, J Scott Smith, Josh Abel, Dave Muliere, Phil Stahl, Tyler Groff, Kevin Sims, Tomasz Lis, Stephen Cheney. The Habitable Worlds Observatory Technology Development Plan. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20260005961
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.