NASA gears up for robotic servicing of its alien-hunting Habitable Worlds Observatory

NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), a future space telescope to study rocky, Earth-like planets, is being designed as serviceable in space—likely via robotics at the Sun–Earth L2 point about a million miles away—so instruments and detectors can be swapped and upgraded over time (including gamma-ray detectors). Building on Hubble’s servicing model, the plan could even involve in-space assembly if needed, with the mission still in early design stages and a launch target in the 2040s.