From Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2018
The Habitable-Exoplanet Observatory (HabEx) is a candidate flagship mission being studied by NASA and the astrophysics community in preparation of the 2020 Decadal Survey. The first HabEx mission concept that has been studied is a large (~4m) diffraction-limited optical space telescope, providing unprecedented resolution and contrast in the optical, with extensions into the near ulttraviolet and near infrared domains. We report here on our team’s efforts in defining a scientifically compelling HabEx mission that is technologically executable, affordable within NASA’s expected budgetary envelope, and timely for the next decade. We also briefly discuss our plans to explore less ambitious, descoped missions relative to the primary mission architecture discussed here.
© (2018) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
B. Scott Gaudi, Bertrand Mennesson, Sara Seager, Kerri Cahoy, John Clarke, Shawn Domagal-Goldman, Lee Feinberg, Olivier Guyon, Jeremy Kasdin, Christian Marois, Dimitri Mawet, Motohide Tamura, David Mouillet, Timo Prusti, Andreas Quirrenbach, Tyler Robinson, Leslie Rogers, Paul Scowen, Rachel Somerville, Karl Stapelfeldt, Christopher Stark, Daniel Stern, Martin Still, Margaret Turnbull, Jeffrey Booth, Alina Kiessling, Gary Kuan, and Keith Warfield, "The Habitable Exoplanet Observatory (HabEx)," Proc. SPIE 10698, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave, 106980P (Presented at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation: June 11, 2018; Published: 1 August 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2312278.