NASA Advances PRIMA Far-Infrared Telescope Into Phase B Development

NASA announced on 24 September that its PRIMA far-infrared space telescope has advanced into Phase B development, the first mission in a new Probe Explorers class, with a launch targeted for 2033.¹⁴²

A new mission class

PRIMA, an acronym for PRobe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics, holds the distinction of being the debut flight in NASA's freshly established Probe Explorers class, itself part of the wider Explorers Program, which NASA says has sent upward of 100 spacecraft into space dating back to Explorer 1's 1958 discovery of Earth's radiation belts.¹²³

According to the dossier's sources, this new Probe Explorers category traces back to a suggestion made by the National Academies' 2020 Decadal Survey, titled 'Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s,' which urged NASA to create such a mission tier.¹²³

Design phase and cost

PRIMA is moving into Phase B, which allows for further development of the mission's preliminary design along with technical and budget reviews, Spaceflight Now reported. ExecutiveGov further noted that this design stage moves forward both the preliminary engineering plans and associated technology, and that NASA has set a $1.2 billion ceiling on the mission's project budget pending a successful confirmation review, with launch expenses and other non-project items excluded from that figure.⁴²¹

According to the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, PRIMA is also subject to a confirmation review that will determine its readiness to proceed to Phase C implementation.³

Science goals

NASA, ExecutiveGov and MPIA report that PRIMA will perform thorough, high-sensitivity observations at far-infrared wavelengths, filling an observational niche between instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope and radio telescope arrays. NASA states the telescope's purpose is to investigate how the cosmos has changed and developed over time.¹²³

ExecutiveGov said PRIMA is designed to examine how exoplanets form, how galaxies expand, black hole behavior, and the accumulation of cosmic dust across time, whereas MPIA framed its scientific priorities as star and planet formation, galaxy evolution, black holes, and cosmic dust.²³

Management and international partners

Per ExecutiveGov and Spaceflight Now, oversight of PRIMA will fall to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, partnering with Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. Spaceflight Now reported that IPAC will serve as the mission's science center, receiving, processing and archiving raw telescope data, and that PRIMA's detectors draw on three decades of research at Caltech and JPL.²⁴

ExecutiveGov and Spaceflight Now identify a roster of global partners in the dossier that spans the national space agencies of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Britain, plus South Korea's Astronomy and Space Science Institute and its AeroSpace Administration. MPIA in Germany announced it will contribute a pair of precisely engineered, actively adjustable steering mirrors for PRIMA's instrument suite, with funding channeled through the DLR space agency—continuing a legacy of MPIA involvement in past observatories such as ISO, Herschel, Euclid, JWST and Roman.²⁴³

Technology

According to Gagadget, PRIMA will use kinetic inductance detectors developed by Dutch engineers that can complete spectral surveys three to five times faster than earlier far-infrared instruments. The outlet also reported that active cryocoolers will hold the telescope's mirror at 4.5 Kelvin, a design intended to sustain the full five-year mission and to avoid the helium-coolant lifespan limits that constrained the earlier Herschel observatory.⁵

NASA said PRIMA carries a 5.9-foot telescope and will operate for a planned five-year mission after its 2033 launch; a launch provider has not yet been selected, according to Spaceflight Now.¹⁴