UK Space Agency awards £3 million for NASA Habitable Worlds Observatory instruments

The UK Space Agency has awarded researchers £3 million to continue developing a proposed core instrument for NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory, SciTechDaily reported, citing a National Astronomy Meeting update. HWO is planned as NASA's next flagship space telescope after the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, with launch expected in the 2040s. The funding expands UK-led instrument studies already shared with NASA as the observatory enters its next development stage. Professor Martin Barstow of the University of Leicester said HWO will search for Earth-like planets and study their atmospheres for possible evidence of life beyond the Solar System. Direct imaging would require an 8-meter mirror stable to roughly atomic width while blocking host-star light about 10 billion times brighter than an Earth-like planet. UK researchers are leading work on the proposed High Resolution Imager and Multi-Object Spectrograph. Partners include Durham University, The Open University, Leicester, RAL Space, Portsmouth, Oxford, the UK Astronomy Technology Centre and UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory. Dr Caroline Harper of the UK Space Agency said the award backs UK scientists and engineers to lead one of the mission's core instruments. The next round of UK instrument studies is expected to start next month. British teams previously contributed to Hubble and led the European MIRI consortium on JWST.