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Missions

NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope is now named the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

Current/Future Missions

Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO)

The Habitable Worlds Observatory is a large infrared/optical/ultraviolet space telescope recommended by the National Academies’ Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s.

Habitable Worlds Observatory would be the first telescope designed specifically to search for signs of life on planets orbiting other stars.

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Two astronauts on the moon look at a plant sprouting from the soil.
Two Astronauts on the Alien Planet Discover Plant Life. Space Travel, Discovery Of Habitable Worlds and Colonization Concept.

Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

The Roman Space Telescope is a NASA observatory designed to settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.

Known as the “mother of the Hubble Space Telescope,” Nancy Grace Roman was born May 16, 1925 in Nashville, Tennessee, and died December 25, 2018.
From a young age, Roman showed an interest in astronomy, and when she was 11 years old she organized a club with her classmates in Reno, Nevada. In this club they learned about constellations and celestial objects from a book.

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Nancy Grace Roman
Nancy Grace Roman (1925-2018), NASA’s first chief astronomer, is known as the ‘Mother of Hubble.’

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the history of our Universe.

Webb studies every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System. Webb launched on Dec. 25th 2021. It does not orbit around the Earth like the Hubble Space Telescope, it orbits the Sun 1.5 million kilometers (1 million miles) away from the Earth at what is called the second Lagrange point or L2. 

Learn More about James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
Cosmic Road Trip: four distinct composite images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope, presented in a two-by-two grid, Rho Ophiuchi at lower right, the heart of the Orion Nebula at upper right, the galaxy NGC 3627 at lower left and the galaxy cluster MACS J0416.
Cosmic Road Trip: four distinct composite images from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope, presented in a two-by-two grid, Rho Ophiuchi at lower right, the heart of the Orion Nebula at upper right, the galaxy NGC 3627 at lower left and the galaxy cluster MACS J0416.
X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical/Infrared: (Hubble) NASA/ESA/STScI; IR: (JWST) NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

Past Missions

Kepler / K2

The Kepler space telescope was NASA’s first planet-hunting mission, assigned to search a portion of the Milky Way galaxy for Earth-sized planets orbiting stars outside our solar system. 

During nine years in deep space Kepler, and its second act, the extended mission dubbed K2, showed our galaxy contains billions of hidden “exoplanets,” many of which could be promising places for life. They proved that our night sky is filled with more planets than even stars — knowledge that revolutionizes the understanding of our place in the cosmos.

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Illustration of Kepler-1649c Illustration of Kepler-1649c
An illustration of what KEPLER-1649c could look like from its surface. This newly discovered exoplanet is in its star’s habitable zone and is the closest to Earth in size and temperature found yet in KEPLER’s data.

SOFIA

SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, was a Boeing 747SP aircraft modified to carry a 2.7-meter (106-inch) reflecting telescope (with an effective diameter of 2.5 meters or 100 inches).

Flying into the stratosphere at 38,000-45,000 feet put SOFIA above 99 percent of Earth’s infrared-blocking atmosphere, allowing astronomers to study the solar system and beyond in ways that are not possible with ground-based telescopes. SOFIA was made possible through a partnership between NASA and the German Space Agency at DLR.

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NASA's SOFIA jet in the air, with the observatory's door open. The landscape below shows snow-covered mountains.
SOFIA soars over the Sierra Nevada with its telescope door open during a test flight.
NASA / Jim Ross

KAO

Kuiper Airborne Observatory

KAO was the world’s first major airborne astronomical research laboratory. It took more than 1,400 flights through the Earth’s upper atmosphere.

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Large group of people standing around the KOA plane at NASA Ames Research Center
NASA Ames Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO) C-141 wake party
Tom Trower