Nasa’s upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), the agency’s next flagship space telescope designed to search for potentially habitable Earth-like planets, will be built with one major difference from previous observatories: it will be serviceable in space.
Unlike the iconic Hubble Space Telescope, which astronauts repaired and upgraded during multiple Space Shuttle missions, HWO is expected to operate around 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometres) from Earth at the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2 (L2).
Because of that extreme distance, future servicing missions are expected to rely on robotic spacecraft rather than astronauts.
Speaking during the 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Pasadena, California, Nasa Astrophysics Division Director Shawn Domagal-Goldman confirmed that servicing is now considered an essential part of the mission.
“HWO will have to be serviceable to some extent,” he said.
Nasa’s upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), the agency’s next flagship space telescope designed to search for potentially habitable Earth-like planets, will be built with one major difference from previous observatories: it will be serviceable in space.
Unlike the iconic Hubble Space Telescope, which astronauts repaired and upgraded during multiple Space Shuttle missions, HWO is expected to operate around 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometres) from Earth at the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2 (L2). Because of that extreme distance, future servicing missions are expected to rely on robotic spacecraft rather than astronauts.
Speaking during the 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Pasadena, California, Nasa Astrophysics Division Director Shawn Domagal-Goldman confirmed that servicing is now considered an essential part of the mission. “HWO will have to be serviceable to some extent,” he said.
