What Comes After James Webb and WFIRST? Four Amazing Future Space Telescopes

The Hubble Space Telescope has been in space for 28 years, producing some of the most beautiful and scientifically important images of the cosmos that humanity has ever taken. But let’s face it, Hubble is getting old, and it probably won’t be with us for too much longer.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is in the final stages of testing, and WFIRST is waiting in the wings. You’ll be glad to know there are even more space telescopes in the works, a set of four powerful instruments in design right now, which will be part of the next Decadal Survey, and helping to answer the most fundamental questions about the cosmos.

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Tau.Neutrino said:

What Comes After James Webb and WFIRST? Four Amazing Future Space Telescopes

The Hubble Space Telescope has been in space for 28 years, producing some of the most beautiful and scientifically important images of the cosmos that humanity has ever taken. But let’s face it, Hubble is getting old, and it probably won’t be with us for too much longer.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is in the final stages of testing, and WFIRST is waiting in the wings. You’ll be glad to know there are even more space telescopes in the works, a set of four powerful instruments in design right now, which will be part of the next Decadal Survey, and helping to answer the most fundamental questions about the cosmos.

more…

Don’t tell Donald.

So:

• HabEx – look at exoplanet atmospheres
• Lynx – x-rays
• Origins Space Telescope – infrared
• LUVOIR – the Large UV/Optical/IR Surveyor

Maybe more design work and planning could be done with future telescopes in the way fuel and cooling gas and hardware upgrades can be delivered by cargo ship across special orbits so that multiple instruments can be serviced at ten year intervals or something similar to extend missions across twenty to fifty year periods.

Maybe future missions can carry cargo for other instruments as conditions allow?

Tau.Neutrino said:

Maybe more design work and planning could be done with future telescopes in the way fuel and cooling gas and hardware upgrades can be delivered by cargo ship across special orbits so that multiple instruments can be serviced at ten year intervals or something similar to extend missions across twenty to fifty year periods.

Maybe future missions can carry cargo for other instruments as conditions allow?

Come to some international standard (assuming it doesn’t already exist) so you can plug and play newer technology, the shell is all that’s required long term

Tau.Neutrino said:

Maybe more design work and planning could be done with future telescopes in the way fuel and cooling gas and hardware upgrades can be delivered by cargo ship across special orbits so that multiple instruments can be serviced at ten year intervals or something similar to extend missions across twenty to fifty year periods.

Maybe future missions can carry cargo for other instruments as conditions allow?

Low Earth Orbit. No real problems. GTO orbit possibly. Above that, including geosynchronous, lagrangan, lunar orbits, solar orbits, maintenance would start to run into problems. Particularly if it got caught in a solar storm.