2024 Servicing Workshop – Pioneering Sustainable Observatories

2024 Servicing Workshop – Pioneering Sustainable Observatories

Event: 2-Day Workshop Exploring Servicing Capabilities for the Habitable Worlds Observatory

Dates: August 7-8, 2024

Location: Iribe Center, University of Maryland

Overview:

NASA and the University of Maryland Aerospace Department are co-hosting a workshop titled "Pioneering Sustainable Observatories" to explore in-space servicing approaches to prolong operational lifespan, increase resilience, and transform scientific performance for the Habitable Worlds Observatory.  This future NASA mission will advance our understanding of the universe and search for potential for life beyond Earth​.  The two-day workshop will consider servicing capabilities to replace instruments and replenish spacecraft subsystems.  Participants will engage in panel discussions, keynote presentations, and breakout sessions designed to facilitate collaboration and shape the architectural framework for the next generation of space observatories.

Objective:

Pioneering Sustainable Observatories marks the first public engagement to discuss the exciting opportunity to renew the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), ensuring its longevity and maximizing scientific benefits. The workshop will explore various architectural approaches to balance the observatory’s serviceability and complexity with anticipated capabilities for commercial in-space services.  The goal is to foster interest and collaboration within the ongoing community working groups for HWO, inform the commercial servicing community about potential in-space services under consideration, and outline a comprehensive trade space for extended operations and enhanced scientific observations for the HWO program office. 

Background:

The Habitable Worlds Observatory is the highly anticipated NASA flagship mission poised to revolutionize high-priority astrophysics goals put forth in the 2020 Astrophysics Decadal Survey.  Designed to study Earth-sized planets around Sun-like stars, HWO will directly image and spectroscopically characterize roughly 25 potentially habitable exoplanets for signs of life.  Scheduled for launch in the late 2030s, the observatory will orbit the Sun–Earth L2 Lagrange point (SEL2), situated approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.

The Decadal Survey also considered the benefits of incorporating serviceability into the observatory architecture to achieve foundational and transformative science goals through successive upgrades.  Servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope exemplify this approach, significantly enhancing scientific performance through instrument replacement, and extending operational life for over three decades through spacecraft maintenance.   

Advancements in robotic servicing show the promise to build upon Hubble’s modular interfaces and replicate the scientific transformation and mission extension for HWO at SEL2. Prepared interfaces to service components and subsystems prone to rapid obsolescence, limited lifetimes, or frequent failures will substantially improve observatory resilience.  The opportunity to introduce more sensitive instruments and new measurement techniques will ensure that HWO continues to produce cutting edge science throughout its operational lifetime.  This strategy will also provide programmatic flexibility in achieving scientific goals, as the initial launch configuration achieves first generation objectives, and iterative enhancements will enable transformational performance through successive observatory configurations.

Networking Activities:

• Poster Challenge for Higher Education: Workshop participants in undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral research are invited to respond to a poster challenge that will be announced on the workshop website by July 1. Submitted posters addressing a technical challenge related to servicing Habitable Worlds will be displayed at the workshop and posted online.
• Community Bulletin Board:  All participants are invited to submit their vision for Habitable Worlds Observatory in the registration form. Submissions will be posted online in a virtual community bulletin board for the community working group for Habitable Worlds Observatory.

Workshop Details

• Attendance: This is a hybrid event with both in-person and remote participation options. In-person attendance is limited to 300 people.
• Audience: Subject matter experts from academia, industry, and government in fields related to in-space servicing, operation of astronomical observatories, and spaceflight mission formulation.
• In-Person Location at the University of Maryland:  Antonov Auditorium at the Brendan Iribe Center 8125 Paint Branch Dr, College Park, MD 20742.
• Registration: Registration is required to attend. Directions to register will be posted here by July 1: https://www.nasa.gov/nexis/isam/servicing-capability-for-habitable-worlds/
• Cost: The workshop is free to participants. However, participants are responsible for their own travel costs, and no refunds for travel will be provided.
• Registration Deadline: July 26, 2024.

Disclaimers

• There is no procurement contemplated at this time.  Solicitations and proposals are not being accepted at this time.
• Workshop participants will be asked to acknowledge inclusion and conduct expectations from the NASA Astrophysics Statement of Principles in the registration form.
• Recordings of the presentations will be made available online afterward.
• Attendance is not required to participate in community working groups for the Habitable Worlds Observatory. 

Links

Summer 2024 Workshop: Pioneering Sustainable Observatories

https://www.nasa.gov/nexis/isam/servicing-capability-for-habitable-worlds/

Habitable Worlds Observatory

https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/programs/habitable-worlds-observatory/

University of Maryland, Department of Aerospace Engineering

https://aero.umd.edu/

National Academies: Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/26141/interactive/

Points of Contact

Please reference the workshop title "Pioneering Sustainable Observatories" in any email correspondence.

Primary Contact: Patty Manalansan/Project Support Manager

Phone: 301-286-8055

E-mail:  Patty.Manalansan@nasa.gov

Secondary Contact: Mary Dobay/Project Support Manager

Phone: 301-286-8488

E-mail:  Mary.A.Dobay@nasa.gov