Related papers: The LUVOIR Mission Concept Study Final Report
Executive Summary: The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is the first astrophysics flagship mission with a key cross-divisional astrobiology science goal of searching for signs of life on rocky planets beyond our solar system. The Living…
A coming resurgence of super heavy-lift launch vehicles has precipitated an immense interest in the future of crewed spaceflight and even future colonisation efforts. While it is true that a bright future awaits this sector, driven by…
The goal of the Orbiting Wide-field Light-collectors (OWL) mission is to study the origin and physics of the highest energy particles known in nature, the ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). The OWL mission consists of telescopes with UV…
As an end-member of terrestrial planet formation, Mercury holds unique clues about the original distribution of elements in the earliest stages of solar system development and how planets and exoplanets form and evolve in close proximity to…
An outstanding, multi-disciplinary goal of modern science is the study of the diversity of potentially Earth-like planets and the search for life in them. This goal requires a bold new generation of space telescopes, but even the most…
In this white paper, we present a cross-section of important scientific questions that remain partially or completely unanswered, ranging from Titan exosphere to the deep interior, and we detail which instrumentation and mission scenarios…
The present paper describes the current baseline optical design of POLLUX, a high-resolution spectropolarimeter for the future LUVOIR mission. The instrument will operate in the ultraviolet (UV) domain from 90 to 390 nm in both…
POLLUX is a high-resolution, UV spectropolarimeter proposed for the 15-meter primary mirror option of LUVOIR. The instrument Phase 0 study is supported by the French Space Agency (CNES) and performed by a consortium of European scientists.…
Future prospects for solar spectroscopy missions operating in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and soft X-ray (SXR) wavelength ranges, 1.2-1600 Angstroms, are discussed. NASA is the major funder of Solar Physics missions, and brief summaries…
The Ultraviolet (UV) Type Ia Supernova Mission (UVIa) is a CubeSat/SmallSat concept that stands to test critical space-borne UV technology for future missions like the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) while elucidating long-standing…
This paper focuses on the mission design for the Laser Astrometric Test Of Relativity (LATOR). This mission uses laser interferometry between two micro-spacecraft whose lines of sight pass close by the Sun to accurately measure deflection…
World Space Observatory UltraViolet (WSO-UV) is a multipurpose space observatory, made by a 170 cm aperture telescope, capable of UV high-resolution spectroscopy, long slit low-resolution spectroscopy, and deep UV and optical imaging. With…
Voyager 3 is a concept mission that sends a space telescope to the interstellar medium in a reasonable amount of time. Voyager 3 would take a direct image of an exoplanet using the solar gravitational lensing at the distance of 550…
Solar sails enable missions to observe the solar environment from unique vantage points, such as sustained observations away from the Sun-Earth line; sub-L1 station keeping; high inclination solar orbits; Earth polar-sitting and…
Ground-based telescopes have been playing a leading role in exoplanet direct imaging science and technological development for the past two decades and will continue to have an indispensable role for the next decade and beyond. Extreme…
Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) will be NASA's flagship space telescope of the 2040s, designed to search for life on other planets and to transform broad areas of astrophysics. NASA are seeking international partners, and the UK is…
Even though it was not designed as an exoplanetary research mission, the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) has been opportunistically used for a novel experiment, in which Earth serves as a proxy exoplanet. More than two years of…
Instrumentation techniques in the field of direct imaging of exoplanets have greatly advanced over the last two decades. Two of the four NASA-commissioned large concept studies involve a high-contrast instrument for the imaging and spectral…
We present our proposal for a small X-ray mission DIOS (Diffuse Intergalactic Oxygen Surveyor), consisting of a 4-stage X-ray telescope and an array of TES microcalorimeters, cooled with mechanical coolers, with a total weight of about 400…
Lynx is the next-generation observatory which will provide unprecedented X-ray vision into the otherwise invisible Universe to gain understanding of origins and physics of the cosmos. Lynx will see the dawn of black holes, reveal what…