05:18 15-01-2026

Schmidt Sciences to deliver four telescopes in 4 years

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Schmidt Sciences backs four observatories—Lazurite, Argus, D.S.A. and LFAST—to launch in 4 years, using off-the-shelf tech to rival Hubble and speed discovery

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy, are bringing a Silicon Valley playbook to a field known for decade-long timelines and heavy bureaucracy. Through their philanthropy Schmidt Sciences, they are funding four major telescopes—including an orbital instrument intended to rival NASA’s Hubble.

The premise is straightforward: lean on existing technology and structure projects to launch quickly and run in bounded, “experimental” cycles, not for generations.

Four telescopes in four years

Schmidt Sciences plans to have all four observatories operating within four years. By astronomy’s standards, that’s practically a sprint; facilities of this class typically take decades.

Arpita Roy, who leads astrophysics and space at Schmidt Sciences, told the American Astronomical Society meeting in Phoenix that the program is an experiment meant to accelerate discovery. She acknowledged the team is accepting higher risk—while emphasizing that it is calculated and, in their view, warranted.

Why bet on off‑the‑shelf tech

The projects share a pragmatic thread: don’t reinvent what already works; repurpose and reprogram it. That’s especially true for high‑performance chips that have powered recent advances in artificial intelligence.

For several years, Schmidt Sciences funded early research, technology development, and prototyping behind closed doors. Now the outline is public: universities set to run the ground telescopes are chosen, and component manufacturing has begun. President Stuart Feldman said testing has made the team confident that the key pieces are sound.

What the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Observatories System includes

All four efforts sit under one banner—the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Observatories System. It comprises:

• The space telescope “Lazurite”—an orbital observatory conceived as a Hubble‑class competitor.
• “Argus”—a system that will continuously image the entire night sky of the Northern Hemisphere.
• Deep Synoptic Array (D.S.A.)—a radio survey instrument designed to scan cosmic radio frequencies around the clock.
• LFAST—a large fiber‑optic spectroscopic telescope built to capture the “color” of light from distant objects.

How the Schmidts’ approach differs from traditional big science

Federal investment has long underpinned U.S. science, and astronomy has also leaned on private philanthropy. The text recalls Percival Lowell, who funded Arizona’s Lowell Observatory in hopes of finding evidence of life on Mars.

The Schmidt Sciences model feels closer to startup logic: faster, cheaper, with tightly scoped goals and timelines. These observatories are not intended as multi‑decade monuments but as tools “for a few years,” to be replaced by new generations as technology advances. The team argues that, over time, this could prove more cost‑effective than the classic approach.

Roy said such experiments should run for a limited period—currently envisioned as three to five years—before giving way to new projects.

Fitting into today’s funding uncertainty

Representatives of Schmidt Sciences acknowledged that the past year brought uncertainty to research, amid attempts by the Trump administration to push deep cuts to NASA and the National Science Foundation. They stressed that their initiatives are not meant to substitute for government programs.

Feldman underlined that NASA and the NSF excel at 10–20‑year missions and instruments; there is no point trying to compete with that. Schmidt Sciences, by contrast, can make binary funding decisions and move quickly—and that is what speeds up launch.

The Schmidts are not disclosing exact budgets. It is known that Lazurite is estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and the ground instruments also require significant investment.

Lazurite: ambitions that ran into Starship

The orbital telescope is the most high‑profile and technically demanding piece. Feldman said its mirror will be a little larger than Hubble’s.

The original plan was bolder: a 20‑foot primary mirror was fabricated—more than twice Hubble’s. Because the mirror is a single piece, only one rocket could carry it: SpaceX’s Starship, developed by Elon Musk’s company.

With Starship’s development experiencing setbacks and slipping beyond stated timelines, Schmidt Sciences adjusted course in fall 2024. Feldman indicated the larger‑mirror option could be revisited once the launcher’s prospects are clearer.

Why Lazurite matters for dark energy

Lazurite emerged from discussions between Feldman and Berkeley astrophysicist Perlmutter, who received the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the accelerating expansion of the Universe.

The telescope is designed to measure the color of exploding white dwarfs more precisely. Redshift shows how fast distant galaxies are receding. Later observations have suggested white dwarfs are not always uniform, and the nature of dark energy may have changed over time. Lazurite is meant to deliver new data to test whether new physics is in play.

In his remarks, Perlmutter essentially emphasized that such measurements would sharpen understanding and help gauge whether this is truly a new phenomenon.

Faster slews, better timing

Another Lazurite hallmark is the ability to pivot in space faster than Hubble or James Webb, enabling rapid measurements of newly discovered supernovae right at peak brightness.

The telescope will also probe exoplanets using a coronagraph, which blocks starlight to reveal a nearby planet.

Argus: not one giant, but 1,200 small telescopes

If the space segment looks familiar, the ground instruments verge on the radical.

Argus Array resembles the Vera Rubin Observatory in purpose—it will survey the sky—but Rubin is a single 8.4‑meter facility in Chile scanning the Southern Hemisphere, while Argus is a mosaic of 1,200 small telescopes, each with a 28‑centimeter mirror.

University of North Carolina professor Nicholas Low, who oversees the project, said the system targets different problems. Small telescopes are less suited to fast movers like asteroids and are not built for the faintest, most distant targets. What they can do is sweep the entire sky within minutes.

A simple structure instead of a dome

The 1,200 telescopes will sit on eight circular mounts moving in unison. There will be no traditional dome; the facility will resemble a warehouse with dormer windows—a simpler, cheaper build.

Almost a time machine for astronomers

Because Argus will observe continuously and retain a week’s worth of data, it can respond to alerts from other instruments. If LIGO, for example, detects gravitational waves from a black‑hole merger, Argus can check for a visible counterpart.

Low compared this to a time machine: researchers can rewind the archive to look for precursors before the gravitational detectors raised the alarm.

The site has not been announced, though Low called Texas a likely choice. First light is expected in 2027. The text also notes that Alex Gerko is co‑funding the project with Schmidt Sciences.

D.S.A.: a radio map of the Universe at new scales

The Deep Synoptic Array follows the same philosophy: many modest elements acting as one instrument.

The array will survey the sky in radio, with 1,650 dishes, each 20 feet across, spread over 60,000 acres in Nevada.

Caltech professor Gregg Hallinan, who will build and operate D.S.A., argued that nothing existing or planned matches it. He also sketched the scale: by his count, all radio telescopes of the past century together found about 10 million radio sources, while D.S.A. is expected to double that on its first day.

Over a five‑year survey, the tally is expected to reach one billion radio sources. Construction could begin as soon as next year.

LFAST: spectra, not pictures

LFAST also relies on multiple optical telescopes, but its focus is spectra—the detailed “color signature” of a target. Spectra are essential for decoding fleeting phenomena like supernovae and for analyzing exoplanet atmospheres.

Spectroscopy, however, takes time: photons must be gathered in large numbers because dispersing the light effectively spreads it out. Project lead Chad Bender of the University of Arizona said astronomers want far more spectra than current telescopes have observing hours to deliver.

Because many small telescopes cost less than one giant one, the team hopes to supply the needed volume of spectral data at a lower price. A prototype is being built in Arizona, and the design could be adjusted and scaled after testing.

How the community is reacting

About 150 people attended the Phoenix presentation, with more watching online. The mood suggested astronomers were drawn to the new operating style: faster, simpler, built around a different organizational logic.

Heidi Hammel of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy said she welcomes Schmidt Sciences trying new approaches, while noting that only practice will tell. If the effort creates new working paradigms, she suggested, that would be a meaningful outcome.

At the same time, she flagged the limits: these telescopes will not outdo the most ambitious programs such as James Webb or the planned “Living Worlds” observatory. The value, she said, lies elsewhere—in offering alternative tools tailored to specific, sharply defined scientific questions.