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Schmidt Sciences aims to speed up the development of the telescope using modular systems and a "risk-tolerant technical innovation" approach.
The philanthropic organization of Eric Schmidt, billionaire and former Google chief executive, plans to launch a large private space telescope, networked with three ground-based observation facilities.
Schmidt Sciences aims to speed up the telescope’s development using modular systems and a “risk-tolerant technical innovation” approach, the nonprofit organization wrote on LinkedIn on Jan. 7.
“The Eric and Wendy Schmidt Observatory System” would be comprised of a network of a space-based telescope, 1,200 ground-based telescopes, a ground-based radio survey telescope and a fiber array spectroscopic telescope, Schmidt Sciences says.
“By compressing development timelines from decades to years and utilizing risk-tolerant technical innovation, this initiative is expanding access to world-class research,” it says. “Our mission is to empower the global scientific community through open data and shared tools, ensuring that frontier astrophysics is accessible to researchers everywhere.”
Development of the Lazuli Space Observatory space-based telescope would be led by Schmidt Sciences, which characterizes it as “the world’s largest rapid-response space telescope.” The instrument would operate in lunar-resonant orbit and could be pointed toward a cosmic event in less than 4 hr. after a trigger, Schmidt Sciences says.
The rest of the Observatory System would be developed in partnership with universities.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and billionaire financial trader Alex Gerko are to develop the Argus Array, a ground-based network of 1,200 telescopes that would create a “movie camera” of the sky with a resolution of 122 gigapixels.
“It will monitor the Northern sky at a high cadence to capture the universe’s fastest transients,” Schmidt Sciences says.
Cal Tech is to lead development of the Deep Synoptic Array, a ground-based radio survey telescope located in Nevada that would “process images in real time.”
“It will map over 1 billion radio sources to explore dark matter and gravitational waves,” Schmidt Sciences says.
The University of Arizona will lead development of the Large Fiber Array Spectroscopic Telescope, which would use “optical fibers to combine light from many small units, supporting high-resolution spectroscopy for exoplanet and time-domain studies,” Schmidt Sciences says.
Schmidt Sciences says it is seeding its project with a “FirstLight Awards” program that will give early career researchers up to $500,000 per year for five years “to lead the system’s first major discoveries.” The awardees will also help develop open software and artificial intelligence-enabled workflows for the observatory system.
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