Related papers: The LUVOIR Mission Concept Study Final Report
Following the recommendations to NASA and ESA, the search for life on exoplanets will be a priority in the next decades. Two direct imaging space mission concepts are being developed: the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) and the Large…
Over the last two decades, the discovery of exoplanets has fundamentally changed our perception of the universe and humanity's place within it. Recent work indicates that a solar system's X-ray and high energy particle environment is of…
This is the first in a collection of three papers introducing the science with an ultra-violet (UV) space telescope on an approximately 130~kg small satellite with a moderately fast re-pointing capability and a real-time alert communication…
Characterizing the surface and atmosphere of Earth-like planets in reflected light is a key goal for upcoming direct imaging surveys. NASA's next flagship-class astrophysics mission concept, the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), is a…
The quest for other habitable worlds and the search for life among them are major goals of modern astronomy. One way to make progress towards these goals is to obtain high-quality spectra of a large number of exoplanets over a broad range…
The EUSO (Extreme Universe Space Observatory) project is developing a new mission concept for the scientific research of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs) from space. The EUSO wide-field telescope will look down from space onto the…
Mini-EUSO will observe the Earth in the UV range (300 - 400 nm) offering the opportunity to study a variety of atmospheric events such as Transient Luminous Events (TLEs), meteors and marine bioluminescence. Furthermore it aims to search…
The goal of the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is to detect and study gravitational waves of astrophysical origin. Direct detection of gravitational waves holds the promise of testing general relativity in the…
The Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instrument is a high-resolution imaging spectrometer operating at extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wavelengths. In this paper, we present the concept, design, and pre-launch performance of…
LOFT is one of the four medium mission candidates (M3), selected by ESA in the framework of the Cosmic Vision Programme (2015-2025), for feasibility study. If approved by ESA in 2014, its launch is foreseen in 2022-2024. LOFT is being…
The Astro2010 Decadal Survey recommended a Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) as its top priority for a new large space mission. As conceived by the decadal survey, WFIRST would carry out a dark energy science program, a…
In the course of the selection of the scientific themes for the second and third L-class missions of the Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program of the European Space Agency, the exploration of the ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune was defined…
One of the key research themes identified by the Astro2020 decadal survey is Worlds and Suns in Context. The Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite (AXIS) is a proposed NASA APEX mission that will become the prime high-energy instrument for…
I examine possible futures for UV astronomy, in view of the past history and collected knowledge of the UV sky through various missions since the early days of Space Astronomy. The last all-sky survey has been by TD-1 in the early 1970s,…
This paper discusses experimental design for the Laser Astrometric Test Of Relativity (LATOR) mission. LATOR is designed to reach unprecedented accuracy of 1 part in 10^8 in measuring the curvature of the solar gravitational field as given…
NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) aims to achieve starlight suppression to the $10^{-10}$ level for the detection and spectral characterization of Earth-like exoplanets. Broadband ozone absorption features are key biosignatures that…
The Ice Giants Study was commissioned by NASA to take a fresh look (as of 2017) at science priorities and concepts for missions to the Uranus and Neptune systems in preparation for the third Planetary Science Decadal Survey. This study was…
The Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey mission (ARIEL) is one of the three present candidates for the ESA M4 (the fourth medium mission) launch opportunity. The proposed Payload will perform a large unbiased…
The Extreme-ultraviolet Stellar Characterization for Atmospheric Physics and Evolution (ESCAPE) mission is an astrophysics Small Explorer employing ultraviolet spectroscopy (EUV: 80 - 825 \AA\ and FUV: 1280 - 1650 \AA) to explore the…
We present the 2012 Hubble Ultra Deep Field campaign (UDF12), a large 128-orbit Cycle 19 \HST\ program aimed at extending previous WFC3/IR observations of the UDF by quadrupling the exposure time in the F105W filter, imaging in an…