Are We Alone In The Universe? South Bay Company Joins NASA In Search For The Answer

REDONDO BEACH, CA — A South Bay technology company has been selected by NASA to help advance its search-for-life mission, NASA announced Monday.

NASA selected industry proposals from seven companies, including Northrop Grumman Inc. in Redondo Beach, to help advance technology for its “Habitable Worlds Observatory concept — the first mission that would directly image Earth-like planets around stars like our Sun and study the chemical composition of their atmospheres for signs of life,” NASA officials said.

The space telescope would also allow for a range of “studies of our universe and support future human exploration of Mars, our solar system, and beyond,” officials said.

“The Habitable Worlds Observatory is exactly the kind of bold, forward-leaning science that only NASA can undertake,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a written statement. “Humanity is waiting for the breakthroughs this mission is capable of achieving and the questions it could help us answer about life in the universe.”

To reach its goal, NASA officials said the Habitable Worlds Observatory requires “a stable optical system that moves no more than the width of an atom while it conducts observations.”

The mission also calls for “a coronagraph – an instrument that blocks the light of a star to better see its orbiting planets – thousands of times more capable than any space coronagraph ever built,” officials said.

The Habitable Worlds Observatory would be designed so it could be serviced in space to extend its lifetime, according to NASA.

To further these technologies, NASA said it selected three-year, fixed-price contracts with seven companies:

• Northrop Grumman Inc., Redondo Beach, California
• Lockheed Martin Inc., Palo Alto, California
• Astroscale U.S. Inc., Denver
• BAE Systems Space and Mission Systems, Inc., Boulder, Colorado
• Busek Co. Inc, Natick, Massachusetts
• L3Harris Technologies Inc., Rochester, New York
• Zecoat Co. Inc., Granite City, Illinois

“The newly selected proposals build on previous industry involvement, which began in 2017 under NASA’s ‘System-Level Segmented Telescope Design’ solicitations and continued with awards for large space telescope technologies in 2024,” according to NASA.

The proposals will help inform NASA’s approach in planning the “Habitable Worlds Observatory concept, as the agency builds on technologies and lessons learned from its Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope, and upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope,” officials said.

“Are we alone in the universe? is an audacious question to answer, but one that our nation is poised to pursue, leveraging the groundwork we’ve laid from previous NASA flagship missions,” Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a written statement. “With the Habitable Worlds Observatory, NASA will chart new frontiers for humanity’s exploration of the cosmos.”