NASA will robotically maintain Habitable Worlds Observatory without astronaut spacewalks
Technology
NASA is years away from launching the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), a powerful telescope that will search for Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars.
Unlike Hubble, which astronauts fixed in person, HWO will be parked about 1 million miles from Earth and get all its tune-ups from robotic systems (no spacewalks required).
Habitable Worlds Observatory supports modular upgrades
HWO is built with modular parts and advanced detectors so robots can swap out or upgrade components as tech improves.
This way, NASA can keep the observatory at the cutting edge for years, learning from past telescopes like Hubble and James Webb to make sure HWO keeps hunting for habitable worlds well into the future.