The Habitable Exoplanet Observatory (HabEx) Mission Concept Study Final Report

Abstract

The Habitable Exoplanet Observatory, or HabEx, has been designed to be the Great Observatory of the 2030s. For the first time in human history, technologies have matured sufficiently to enable an affordable space-based telescope mission capable of discovering and characterizing Earthlike planets orbiting nearby bright sunlike stars in order to search for signs of habitability and biosignatures. Such a mission can also be equipped with instrumentation that will enable broad and exciting general astrophysics and planetary science not possible from current or planned facilities. HabEx is a space telescope with unique imaging and multi-object spectroscopic capabilities at wavelengths ranging from ultraviolet (UV) to near-IR. These capabilities allow for a broad suite of compelling science that cuts across the entire NASA astrophysics portfolio. HabEx has three primary science goals: (1) Seek out nearby worlds and explore their habitability; (2) Map out nearby planetary systems and understand the diversity of the worlds they contain; (3) Enable new explorations of astrophysical systems from our own solar system to external galaxies by extending our reach in the UV through near-IR. This Great Observatory science will be selected through a competed GO program, and will account for about 50% of the HabEx primary mission. The preferred HabEx architecture is a 4m, monolithic, off-axis telescope that is diffraction-limited at 0.4 microns and is in an L2 orbit. HabEx employs two starlight suppression systems: a coronagraph and a starshade, each with their own dedicated instrument.

Full report: 498 pages. Executive Summary: 14 pages. More information about HabEx can be found here: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/habex/

Cited by in corpus (61)

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• CHES: a space-borne astrometric mission for the detection of habitable planets of the nearby solar-type stars
• Chasing rainbows and ocean glints: Inner working angle constraints for the Habitable Worlds Observatory
• Understanding planetary context to enable life detection on exoplanets and test the Copernican principle
• Evaluating the Plausible Range of N2O Biosignatures on Exo-Earths: An Integrated Biogeochemical, Photochemical, and Spectral Modeling Approach
• Possibilities for an Aerial Biosphere in Temperate Sub Neptune-Sized Exoplanet Atmospheres
• Probing the capability of future direct imaging missions to spectrally constrain the frequency of Earth-like planets
• A New Method For Studying Exoplanet Atmospheres Using Planetary Infrared Excess
• Imaging exoplanets with coronagraphic instruments
• Analytical tolerancing of segmented telescope co-phasing for exo-Earth high-contrast imaging
• An Integrated Analysis with Predictions on the Architecture of the tau Ceti Planetary System, Including a Habitable Zone Planet
• Broadband Vector Vortex Coronagraph Testing at NASA's High Contrast Imaging Testbed Facility
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• Atmospheric Dynamics of a Near Tidally Locked Earth-Size Planet
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• Experimental analysis of the achromatic performance of a vector vortex coronagraph
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• EOS-ESTM: A flexible climate model for habitable exoplanets
• Laboratory demonstration of the wrapped staircase scalar vortex coronagraph
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• Follow the Water: Finding Water, Snow and Clouds on Terrestrial Exoplanets with Photometry and Machine Learning
• The Role of Atmospheric Exchange in False-Positive Biosignature Detection
• An Integrative Analysis of the Rich Planetary System of the Nearby Star e Eridani: Ideal Targets For Exoplanet Imaging and Biosignature Searches
• Phase Modeling of the TRAPPIST-1 Planetary Atmospheres
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• Topological Designs for Scalar Vortex Coronagraphs
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• The Potential of Detecting Nearby Terrestrial Planets in the HZ with Different Methods
• Lightweight starshade position sensing with convolutional neural networks and simulation-based inference
• Photobombing Earth 2.0: Diffraction Limit Related Contamination and Uncertainty in Habitable Planet Spectra
• Atmospheric retrievals for LIFE and other future space missions: the importance of mitigating systematic effects
• Dual Purpose Lyot Coronagraph Masks for Simultaneous High-Contrast Imaging and High-Resolution Wavefront Sensing
• High Contrast Demonstrations of Novel Scalar Vortex Coronagraph Designs at the High Contrast Spectroscopy Testbed
• Redundant apodization for direct imaging of exoplanets I: Robustness to primary mirror segmentation-induced errors outside the segment diffraction limit
• Experimental validation of active control of low-order aberrations with a Zernike sensor through a Lyot coronagraph
• Integrated photonic-based coronagraphic systems for future space telescopes
• Polarization effects on high contrast imaging: measurements on THD2 Bench
• ESCAPE project: investigating active observing strategies and post-processing methods for exoplanet high-contrast imaging with future space missions
• Simulated performance of energy-resolving detectors towards exoplanet imaging with the Habitable Worlds Observatory
• Random Vibration Testing of Microelectromechanical Deformable Mirrors for Space-based High-Contrast Imaging
• High-contrast imager for complex aperture telescopes (HiCAT): 11. System-level demonstration of the Apodized Pupil Lyot Coronagraph with a segmented aperture in air
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• Interferometric apodization by homothety -- II. Experimental validation
• A Decade of NASA Strategic Astrophysics Technology Investments: Technology Maturation, Infusion, and Other Benefits
• Estimating low-order aberrations through a Lyot coronagraph with a Zernike wavefront sensor for exoplanet imaging
• Mid-order wavefront control for exoplanet imaging: preliminary characterization of the segmented deformable mirror and Zernike wavefront sensor on HiCAT