Exoplanets, -moons, -comets

Habitable Worlds Observatory’s Concept and Technology Maturation: Initial Feasibility and Trade Space Exploration

By Keith Cowing

Press Release

January 21, 2026

Filed under Astro2020 Decadal Survey, astronomy, exoplanet, Habitable Worlds Observatory, Stellar Cartography, telescope

Habitable Worlds Observatory’s Concept and Technology Maturation: Initial Feasibility and Trade Space Exploration — The EAC-1 (top row), EAC-2 (middle row), and EAC-3 (bottom row) designs shown to relative scale. The left column shows the stowed, launch configuration for each architecture and its fit inside the representative Starship fairing. The middle column is looking down the telescope boresight, and the right column shows the top-down view. A series of well-established deployments are used to transform between the stowed and operational configurations. — astro-ph.IM

The Habitable Worlds Observatory is the first telescope ever designed to search for life and will be a powerhouse of discovery across topics in astrophysics.

The observatory was the top recommendation of the Astro2020 Decadal Survey for large missions and a new HWO Technology Maturation Project Office was formed in August 2024 to mature the architecture, science and technology.

In this paper we review the overall approach taken to mature the mission concept. We show progress on architecture development, integrated modeling, science cases, and technology roadmaps consistent with pre-formulation studies.

We discuss plans for instrument studies and international engagement and science engagement including a Community Science and Instrument Team. Finally, we describe the plan forward to the Mission Concept Review.

Lee D. Feinberg, Breann N. Sitarski, Michael W. McElwain, Giada Arney, Caleb Baker, Matthew D. Bolcar, Marie Levine, Alice Liu, Bertrand Mennesson, Aki Roberge, J. Scott Smith, Feng Zhao, John Ziemer

Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
Cite as: arXiv:2601.11803 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:2601.11803v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2601.11803
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Submission history
From: Breann Sitarski
[v1] Fri, 16 Jan 2026 22:06:47 UTC (13,605 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.11803
Astrobiology, Astronomy, Exoplanet,

Keith Cowing

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻

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