UK’s £3 Million Bet Could Help NASA Find Life on Nearby Planets

The UK Space Agency has awarded £3 million to UK researchers developing key instruments for NASA’s planned Habitable Worlds Observatory.

The funding supports work on a high-resolution imager and a multi-object spectrograph designed to study Earth-like exoplanets and their atmospheres.

The technology development is intended to mature capabilities needed to search for biosignatures as the mission advances toward a 2040s launch target.

The investment could help secure a major UK role in a flagship NASA mission aimed at finding potentially habitable worlds beyond the Solar System.