NASA advances PRIMA far-infrared telescope toward full design

NASA has moved PRIMA, a planned far-infrared space telescope, into the next stage of development, according to reporting by mpg.de. The decision takes the mission into Phase B, where its preliminary design and supporting technologies will be developed in greater detail.

PRIMA is the first mission in NASA’s new Probe Explorers category, created within the agency’s long-running Explorers Program. Its proposed science programme is intended to examine how planets, stars, galaxies and black holes formed and changed, while also investigating the history of dust, heavy elements and water in the universe.

The mission must still pass a confirmation review before it can enter Phase C, the implementation stage. That assessment will consider its technical progress, programme management and costs. If NASA confirms the project, its mission cost will be limited to $1.2 billion, excluding the launch and other expenses outside the project budget. The observatory is currently targeted for launch in 2033 and is planned to operate for five years.

A view between infrared and radio astronomy

PRIMA will carry a 1.8-metre telescope designed to make deep and sensitive surveys at far-infrared wavelengths. This part of the electromagnetic spectrum can reveal radiation that is not accessible through many observations made at shorter infrared wavelengths.

The telescope is intended to occupy an important space between observatories such as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and radio facilities. By adding far-infrared observations to the capabilities of the existing space-telescope fleet, scientists hope to follow processes that are difficult to study through any single wavelength range.

Among the questions planned for investigation are how planets beyond the solar system originate, how galaxies and their central black holes have developed across cosmic history, and how material such as dust and heavier elements accumulated. Together, these studies could help researchers explain the conditions that produced the universe seen today.

PRIMA’s instruments will include PRIMAger, an imaging instrument, and FIRESS, a far-infrared enhanced survey spectrometer. The Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, or MPIA, has proposed supplying opto-mechanical equipment and control electronics, including two actively controlled beam-steering mirrors.

Each mirror would work in two axes as a focal-plane chopper. Its role would be to move and steady an instrument’s field of view rapidly and accurately, allowing the observatory to point at different regions of the sky while maintaining the required control of the observation.

MPIA’s role and international backing

The proposed hardware draws on MPIA’s experience in infrared and space astronomy. The institute has previously held important roles in missions including the European Space Agency’s Infrared Space Observatory, Herschel and Euclid, as well as NASA’s James Webb and Nancy Grace Roman space telescopes.

MPIA scientists expect PRIMA’s observations to support research at the institute, particularly work on the formation of planets and stars. The institute’s proposed contribution would also give its researchers access to data relevant to those fields if the mission proceeds.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California will manage PRIMA under the direction of Caltech. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Marshall Space Flight Center are also partners. The international participants listed for the mission include France’s CNES, Italy’s ASI, Germany’s DLR, the Canadian Space Agency, South Korea’s KASI, Japan’s JAXA and the UK Space Agency. DLR is MPIA’s direct funding agency.

Why the new mission class matters

The Probe Explorers concept follows a recommendation in the US National Academies’ 2020 astronomy and astrophysics decadal survey. NASA evaluated candidate mission studies for scientific value, consistency with that survey, the practicality of their development plans, expected cost and schedule, and the technologies they could advance for larger future observatories.

PRIMA is being developed as part of a broader sequence of major space missions. Webb and Roman have established a pattern of NASA observatories operating across the two halves of the current decade, while PRIMA is intended to begin the next decade’s pipeline of high-capability missions.

The wider Explorers Program is NASA’s longest-running continuous effort to provide relatively frequent, lower-cost access to space for investigator-led science missions. It began with Explorer 1 in 1958, which discovered Earth’s radiation belts, and has since produced more than 100 missions. Its past projects include Uhuru and the Cosmic Background Explorer, whose investigators later received Nobel Prizes.

NASA Goddard manages the programme for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate, which oversees research covering Earth, space weather, the solar system and the wider universe. PRIMA’s progress into Phase B marks a significant step, but its construction and launch remain dependent on the later confirmation review.