NASA Selects PRIMA Mission; Key Roles for Caltech, JPL, and IPAC

NASA announced today the selection of a new space telescope that will explore the cold, dusty universe in far‑infrared light, providing the ability to view cosmic objects and events at wavelengths that are otherwise invisible with existing telescopes. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory , which Caltech manages for NASA, will develop and operate the $1 billion observatory named PRIMA (the Probe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics). Caltech’s IPAC will serve as the mission science center, where raw data from the telescope is received, processed, and archived for use by astronomers seeking to answer