{"id":43477,"date":"2026-01-13T21:32:50","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T13:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-launches-new-mission-to-get-the-most-out-of-the-james-webb-space-telescope\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T21:32:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T13:32:50","slug":"nasa-launches-new-mission-to-get-the-most-out-of-the-james-webb-space-telescope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-launches-new-mission-to-get-the-most-out-of-the-james-webb-space-telescope\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA launches new mission to get the most out of the James Webb Space Telescope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Among other things, the James Webb Space Telescope is designed to get us closer to finding habitable worlds around faraway stars. From its perch a million miles from Earth, Webb\u2019s huge gold-coated mirror collects more light than any other telescope put into space.<\/p>\n

The Webb telescope, launched in 2021 at a cost of more than $10 billion, has the sensitivity to peer into distant planetary systems and detect the telltale chemical fingerprints of molecules critical to or indicative of potential life, like water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane. Webb can do this while also observing the oldest observable galaxies in the Universe and studying planets, moons, and smaller objects within our own Solar System.<\/p>\n

Naturally, astronomers want to get the most out of their big-budget observatory. That\u2019s where NASA\u2019s Pandora mission comes in.<\/p>\n

The Pandora satellite rocketed into orbit early Sunday from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. It hitched a ride with around 40 other small payloads aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, launching into a polar Sun-synchronous orbit before deploying at an altitude of roughly 380 miles (613 kilometers).<\/p>\n

Over the next few weeks, ground controllers will put Pandora through a series of commissioning and calibration steps before turning its eyes toward deep space. Pandora is a fraction of the size of Webb. Its primary mirror is about the size of the largest consumer-grade amateur telescopes, less than one-tenth the dimension of Webb\u2019s. NASA capped Pandora\u2019s budget at $20 million. The budget to develop Webb was more than 500 times higher.<\/p>\n

Double-checking Webb<\/h2>\n

So what can little Pandora add to Webb\u2019s bleeding-edge science? First, it helps to understand how scientists use Webb to study exoplanets. When a planet passes in front of its parent star, some of the starlight shines through its atmosphere. Webb has the sensitivity to detect the filtered starlight and break it apart into its spectral components, telling astronomers about the composition of clouds and hazes in the planet\u2019s atmosphere. Ultimately, the data is useful in determining whether an exoplanet might be like Earth.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\u201cI liken it often to holding a glass of wine in front of a candle, so that we can see really what\u2019s inside,\u201d said Daniel Apai, a member of Pandora\u2019s science team from the University of Arizona. \u201cWe can assess, basically, the quality of the wine. In this case, we use the light that filters through the star\u2019s [atmosphere] through the planetary atmosphere to judge what chemicals, gases in particular, may be present. Water vapor is one that we are the most sensitive to.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a catch. Stars shine millions to billions of times brighter than their planetary companions, and starlight isn\u2019t constant. Like the Sun, other stars have spots, flares, and variability over hours, days, or years. Hot spots and cool spots rotate in and out of view. And the star\u2019s own atmospheres can contain some of the same molecules scientists are seeking to find on exoplanets, including water vapor.<\/p>\n

Therefore, a star\u2019s spectral signature easily outshines the signal coming from a nearby planet. Astronomers discovered this signal \u201ccontamination\u201d when they started looking for potentially habitable worlds, injecting confounding uncertainties into their findings. Were the promising spectra they were seeing coming from the planet or the star?<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Artist\u2019s concept of the Pandora telescope with an exoplanet and two stars in the background.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center\/Conceptual Image Lab<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cOne of the ways that this manifests is by making you think that you\u2019re seeing absorption features like water and potentially methane when there may not be any, or, conversely, you\u2019re not seeing the signatures that are there because they\u2019re masked by the stellar signal,\u201d said Tom Barclay, deputy project scientist and technical lead on the Pandora mission at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

The problem became apparent in the 2010s as astronomers used more powerful telescopes to see the finer details of exoplanets.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something that we always suspected as a community,\u201d Apai told Ars. \u201cWe always suspected that stars are not perfect. At some point, it becomes a problem. But it was not recognized how serious a problem that is until, I would say, about 2017 or 2018.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scientists quickly got to work looking for a solution, and NASA selected the Pandora mission for development in 2021, just months before the launch of Webb.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we\u2019re trying to find water in the atmospheres of these small Earth-like planets, we want to be really sure it\u2019s not coming from the star before we go tell the press and make a big stink about it,\u201d said Elisa Quintana, Pandora\u2019s lead scientist at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center. \u201cSo we designed the Pandora mission specifically to solve this problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

From low-Earth orbit, Pandora will observe exoplanets and their stars simultaneously, allowing astronomers to correct their measurements of the planet\u2019s atmospheric composition and structure based on the ever-changing conditions of the host star itself. Webb could theoretically do this work, but scientists already fill every hour of Webb\u2019s schedule. Pandora will point and stare at 20 preselected exoplanets 10 times during its one-year prime mission, collecting 24 hours of visible and infrared observations with each visit. This will capture short-term and longer-term changes in each star\u2019s behavior.<\/p>\n

SpaceX launched Pandora into a so-called \u201ctwilight orbit\u201d that follows the boundary between day and night on Earth, allowing the satellite to keep its solar panels illuminated by the Sun while performing its observations.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can send this small telescope out, sit on a star for a really long time, and sort of map all the star spots, and really disentangle the star and planet signals,\u201d Quintana said in a recent panel discussion at NASA Goddard. \u201cIt\u2019s filling a really nice gap in helping us to sort of calibrate all these stars that James Webb is going to look at, so we can be really confident that all of these molecules that we\u2019re detecting in planets are real.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is really the most important scientific barrier that we have to break down to fully unlock the potential of Webb and future missions,\u201d Apai said.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Looking down the barrel of Pandora\u2019s 17-inch-wide (45-centimeter) telescope.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n NASA\/Jordan Karburn, LLNL<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Ben Hord, a member of Pandora\u2019s science team at Goddard, singled out one example in a presentation at an American Astronomical Society meeting last year. This planet, named GJ 486 b, is a \u201csuper-Earth\u201d discovered in 2021 circling a relatively cool red dwarf star. Hord said astronomers had trouble determining if the planet has a water-rich atmosphere based on Webb\u2019s observations alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to know if water is in the atmospheres of these exoplanets, and this stellar contamination from the spots on the star can mask or mimic features like water,\u201d Hord said. \u201cOur hope is that Pandora will help James Webb data be even more precise by providing context and understanding for these host stars and these planetary systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Planets around small dwarf stars are some of the best candidates for finding a true Earth analog. Because these stars put out a fraction of the heat of the Sun, a potentially habitable planet could lurk very close to its host, completing a year in a handful of days. This allows astronomers to see the planet repeatedly as it passes in front of its star, rapidly building a dataset on its size, structure, and environment.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

Scientists hope they can extend the lessons learned from Pandora\u2019s observations of a sample of 20 exoplanets to other worlds in our galactic neighborhood. As of late last year, astronomers have confirmed detections of more than 6,000 exoplanets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith a well-corrected spectrum, we can say there\u2019s water, there\u2019s nitrogen,\u201d Quintana said. \u201cSo with every mission, as we evolve, we\u2019re chipping away and taking bigger and bigger steps toward that question of, \u2018OK, we know Earths are out there. We know they\u2019re abundant. We know they have atmospheres. How do we know if they have life on them?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Building on a budget<\/h2>\n

A mission like Pandora was not possible until recently, certainly not on the $20 million budget NASA devoted to the project. With Pandora, the agency took advantage of a fast-growing small satellite industry churning out spacecraft at a fraction of what it cost 10 or 15 years ago.<\/p>\n

The Pandora spacecraft weighed approximately 716 pounds (325 kilograms) at launch and likely would have required a dedicated rocket to travel to space before SpaceX started offering shared rides on its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. NASA did not disclose what it paid SpaceX to launch Pandora, but publicly available pricing suggests SpaceX charges a few million dollars to launch a satellite of the same size. Before the rideshare option became available, NASA would have paid tens of millions of dollars for the launch alone.<\/p>\n

The Pandora mission is part of NASA\u2019s Astrophysics Pioneers program, an initiative set up to solicit ideas for lower-cost astronomy missions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been very, very challenging to try and squeeze this big amount of science into this small cost box, but that\u2019s kind of what makes it fun, right?\u201d Barclay told Ars. \u201cWe have to be pretty ruthless in making sure that we only fund the things we need to fund. We accept risk where we need to accept the risk, and at times we need to accept that we may need to give up performance in order to make sure that we hit the schedule and we hit the launch [schedule].\u201d<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

It helps that Pandora\u2019s 17-inch (45-centimeter) telescope comes from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, which had the technology on the shelf from a national security program. Pandora uses a small satellite platform from Blue Canyon Technologies, a Colorado company.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no way we could have done Pandora 10 years ago,\u201d Barclay said. \u201cThe small launch capabilities that come from companies like Rocket Lab and SpaceX and others meant that now the vendors of spacecraft buses and spacecraft instruments are able to push their costs down because they know that there\u2019s a market for small missions out there. Other parts of the government are investing heavily in small spacecraft, and so that allows us on the science side to make use of that economies of scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

For comparison, the European Space Agency launched an exoplanet observatory about the same size as Pandora in 2019 at a cost of more than $100 million.<\/p>\n

There are companies now looking at how to scale up production of larger satellites, too. Cheaper, heavy satellites could launch on new heavy- and super-heavy rockets like SpaceX\u2019s Starship or Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is an amazing capability to have for astrophysicists because science is moving fast,\u201d Apai said. \u201cExoplanet science is changing. I would say every three or four years, we have breakthroughs. And the product keeps changing. We push the boundaries, and if you ever have to work with 20- or 25-year-long mission lifetimes, that really just limits progress.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among other things, the James Webb Space Telescope is designed to get us closer to finding habitable worlds around faraway stars. From its perch a million miles from Earth, Webb\u2019s huge gold-coated mirror collects more light than any other telescope put into space. The Webb telescope, launched in 2021 at a cost of more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43477"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}