[astro-ph.IM] The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is NASA’s next-generation astrophysics platform, delivering transformative capability in the search for life and study of the origins of the universe.
![[Left]: A concept raytrace showing the IFS, with just the FUV channels shown. The NUV channels take the zero-order from each FUV grating and reflect it towards the IFS fold mirror (on either side) into a similar format NUV IFS (see Haughton et al., 2026 for a depiction of the INFUSE design that this IFS is based on13). The IFS assembly is forward (out of the page) from the MOS at the focal plane, with the IFS fold mirror canted slightly to move the slicer, gratings, and detectors over 0.7 meters from the MOS optical path. [Right]: The slicer-based IFS operates by reflecting portions of the image plane to different gratings, which then focus a spectrogram to a unique portion of the detector. In essence, each reflective slice operates like a long-slit spectrograph, with the slicer geometry separating the multi-slit spectrograph to avoid spectral confusion.-- astro-ph.IM](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/An-Ultraviolet.png?resize=1200%2C563&ssl=1)
[astro-ph.IM] The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is NASA’s next-generation astrophysics platform, delivering transformative capability in the search for life and study of the origins of the universe.