NASA Launches Pandora Telescope, Taking JWST's Search for Habitable Worlds to a New Level

NASA launches Pandora telescope, taking JWST's search for habitable worlds to a new level

The James Webb telescope's search for habitable exoplanets is getting a big boost from its new star-watching companion, Pandora.

SpaceX Launches NASA’s Pandora SmallSat for Exoplanet Discovery

Orbiting Synergy: SpaceX’s Pandora Launch Elevates JWST’s Exoplanet Quest In the early hours of January 11, 2026, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket pierced the night sky from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, carrying a payload that promises to revolutionize our understanding of distant worlds. At the heart of this mission was NASA’s Pandora SmallSat, a compact telescope designed specifically to complement the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) i…

SpaceX Launches New NASA Telescope to Help JWST Study Exoplanets

Last week a University of Arizona astronomy professor "watched anxiously...as an awe-inspiring SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried NASA's new exoplanet telescope, Pandora, into orbit." In 2018 NASA had approached Daniel Apai to help build the telescope, which he says will "shatter a barrier - to understand and remove a source of noise in the data - that limits our ability to study small exoplanets in detail and search for life on them." Astronomers h…