Overview
- NASA advanced PRIMA into Phase B on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, designating it the first mission in a new mid-cost Probe Explorers class.
- PRIMA is designed as a cryogenically cooled space telescope with a 1.8-meter aperture to survey the far‑infrared sky and probe how planets, stars, galaxies, and black holes formed and evolved.
- Reporting identifies an instrument suite that includes an imaging polarimeter called PRIMAger and a high‑resolution spectrometer called FIRESS, with Caltech/IPAC reported to be the mission science data center.
- The Jet Propulsion Laboratory will manage PRIMA with contributions from NASA Goddard, Marshall and several international agencies, and the project must pass a confirmation review before it can enter Phase C under a $1.2 billion project cap.
- PRIMA is targeted to launch in 2033 for a planned five‑year mission and was created to fill a far‑infrared gap between observatories like JWST and radio telescopes, a capability the 2020 Decadal Survey urged through the Probe Explorers concept.