Origins Program

NASA's Origins program is a decades-long study addressing the origins of the universe, various astronomical bodies, and life. The Origins program was started in the 1990s.¹

So far, it consists of the following missions:

• ground-based
  • Keck telescopes*
  • Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer*
  • Keck Interferometer*
• airborne
  • Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA)*
• space based
  • Hubble Space Telescope (HST)*
  • Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) - completed
  • Spitzer Space Telescope (SST) - completed
  • Kepler Space Observatory - completed
  • Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) - cancelled
  • Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) - cancelled
  • James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) *
  • Single Aperture Far Infrared Observatory (SAFIR)
  • Large UV/Optical Telescope
  • Life Finder
  • Planet Imager

Missions marked with * are operational.