Canada considers participating in NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory

NASA is currently in the process of deciding on a design and technology for its next great telescope, the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), and the Canadian Space Agency has issued a request for information (RFI) for the Canadian space astronomy community.

Building on the great telescopes, Hubble, James Webb and yet to be launched Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope which is slated to launch by May 2027, NASA said it “is further prioritizing its long-running search for life in the universe and laying the groundwork for its next flagship astrophysics mission.”

If Canada is to possibly contribute to this astrophysics mission it wants to hear from the Canadian space community as to what contributions it could make.

The CSA said “areas of potential interest can include, but are not limited to, instrumentation (flight hardware), ground segment, operations, data management, and/or scientific utilization. The CSA will use respondents’ submissions to gauge the range and level of HWO contributions which the Canadian space sector could deliver. These submissions, with descriptions of the level of interest, heritage, expertise, technological readiness, capabilities, and resources, will assist the CSA in expressing interest to NASA for a potential contribution and to formulate and focus a roadmap to achieve it.”

The CSA said it “is looking for responses applying to one, all, or any combination of the following options:”

• Scientific capabilities useful for defining observatory or instrument requirements;
• Technology elements relevant to the spacecraft, observatory, instruments, and/or ground segment in need of further maturation;
• Potential Canadian instrument contributions, expressing the technical capabilities while including the scientific expertise to define their requirements;
• Scientific expertise and infrastructure relevant to the reduction, processing, analysis, interpretation, and/or archiving of HWO data.

Those interested have until October 15, 2025 to submit their feedback.

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