The HWO Community Science and Instrument Team

[Presented at AAS-247 Special Session "NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory"]

The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) will be a NASA flagship ultraviolet, optical, and infrared telescope that will pursue a wide range of transformative science across topics in astrophysics, including the evolution of the elements, cosmic structure, black holes, stellar and galactic ecosystems, and planetary science, and will be the first observatory designed to search for habitable planets and life outside the solar system. Astro2020 recommended that future flagships proceed through a mission concept and technology maturation process ahead of entrance into the formulation phase. The HWO Community Science & Instrument Team (CSIT) is the next stage of formal science community input to HWO during its pre-formulation phase. The CSIT will collaborate with the HWO Technology Maturation Project Office at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to mature the HWO mission concept in preparation for a Mission Concept Review, nominally expected by the end of the current decade.

The CSIT supports the Project Office in defining the draft Level-1 science requirements. These science requirements will flow down to define all relevant parameters of the observatory, including aperture size, spacecraft performance, and the resolution, wavelength sensitivity, and field of view of the instruments. CSIT members will report on progress to identify the exciting yet demanding science cases that drive the observatory design, and to summarize the instrument measurement requirements necessary to pursue them. We will also discuss the means by which community members can flow ideas and input through the CSIT to the Project Office.

This is the time to engage and think broadly about the transformative possibilities enabled by HWO, which, despite the name, is a general astrophysics observatory with capabilities that are unprecedented on several fronts. Join us to hear about the wide range of novel science uniquely enabled by HWO, understand the implications for the observatory design, and contribute to the discussion as our community sculpts HWO toward Mission Concept Review.