I like the idea of in-space server farms in that it helps space companies and paves the way for powersats in some respects…but computing advances come so quickly that plans can be spoiled:

https://phys.org/news/2026-01-radio-enable-energy-efficient-ai.html

Now, might that actually *aid* powersat/serversat two-for-ones? Or interfere?

A 2 meter mirror would be cheaper and more stable than a 3 meter mirror.
Plus 6 2meter hexagon mirrors would end up forming a 6 meter mirror.

“That 2028 date is without doubt an “Elon Musk” schedule. It is aggressive to push things, but understood it will likely not be met.”

I suspect you’re correct!

Richard M: Some considerations as to Lazuli’s proposed 2028 launch date:

1. As astronomers have been proposing variations of Lazuli for decades, to no avail, a lot of the design work already exists.

2. Not being a NASA project, I am certain they are foregoing a lot of the make work that goes with every NASA project. For example, with every new telescope new software is written, even if perfectly good software already exists. I was told this by the guy initially hired to write this software for Roman, and have seen it myself time after time.

3. That 2028 date is without doubt an “Elon Musk” schedule. It is aggressive to push things, but understood it will likely not be met.

How are the missions coordinated with what scientists need? Normally we do that with Decadals.

The answer is in the PDF:

“….our priorities are well aligned with the recommendations of the Astro2020
Decadal Survey (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2021) and complement existing
and planned observatories by performing precursor observations allowing target and technique optimizations
for future missions, technology maturation, and follow-up of high value targets”

This gives the whole project a good chance of success.

If billionaires can start rocket companies they certainly can fund telescopes.

I wish this project the very best of luck. Those that think the ONLY way to execute space science is via the government must need a wardrobe change.

I think it must be close to a decade since I last paid a visit to reddit about anything space-related. That was before it descended to the woke depths it currently occupies. Back then, the wackos there weren’t political, they were Moon Landing Deniers, Flat Earthers, Geocentrists, Firmamentarians and such-like. Screwballs, but not evil. Better times.

This Lazuli project will break trail for what I expect to be a great many other purely private-sector basic space science initiatives of many different types and sizes that will follow in coming years. NASA and the rest of the significant national space agencies will find that they must fit their own future space science efforts into whatever gaps remain as there will be no support for “me-too” efforts anent what the private sector has taken on. I think Jared Isaacman assumes the NASA Administrator chair just in time to demonstrate that he’s exactly the guy to work those gaps.

As Jeff Wright said;
Light buckets are better the wider they are.

Thank you for the replies. I *was* starting to fear that I was in danger of becoming an irritant to you with my barrage of comments, which I would hate to be the case, because you have done a great job of coverage and commentary on what has shaped up to be one of the most important news days we have had about space in quite a while!

I don’t have anything more to add to what you have just said about the TAC process and how the Lazuli team might end up employing it. We all look forward eagerly to see how it unfolds.

I would like to risk adding one more contribution to the discussion, if I may. This is a comment made just now by VSECOTSPE (whose real identity I do not wish to reveal, even if it is not too hard to figure out) over in the NSF forums, and I do so because he is a credible observer who knows some of the principals involved, and he is not a hack or an anti-commercial chap, and his sober tonic is worth considering:

Per SpaceNews, they’re actually trying to launch Lazuli in 2028, and to do that, they have to cut important corners, like acoustic and vibration tests. I’d argue that’s unrealistic and/or reckless:

https://spacenews.com/private-group-unveils-plans-for-large-space-telescope/

Beyond that, it’s hard to judge schedule because we don’t know exactly where Lazuli is at in its design/development process.

Roman, for example, passed CDR (Critical Design Review) in September 2021 and is scheduled for launch later this year, or about five years. If Lazuli is at a similar level of design refinement, it’s credible that Lazuli could launch 2030-ish starting today.

But I doubt Lazuli is at that level of refinement because the project doesn’t appear to have performers on board for the main telescope assembly and three instruments (or they’d tell us who those performers are). Roman, for example, made those awards circa 2018. So I would guess that Lazuli is at least eight years out from launch and maybe more, which would be closer to 2035-ish.

Another potentially worrisome issue is technical and managerial depth in the leadership team. Right now, it’s not even clear there is a team. Pete Klupar, formerly from Ames and AFRL, appears to be the only name attached to the project so far. Nothing against Pete — I’ve worked with him on small s/c, like the guy, and admire the project (TechSat 21) he’s most associated with. But Pete is not a telescope guy, a big s/c guy, or an astrophysicist. Maybe he’s got the relevant folks on board, but if not yet, launch may be even further out.

To be clear, I’m not trying to dump on Lazuli and Pete — I’m just trying to put some realistic bookends on where the project may be at. Before WWII, all the major telescopes were private initiatives. I would love to see some bazillionaires competing with each other in the 21st century to build scopes that complement JWST, Roman, HWO, etc. Looking at its stats, Lazuli would especially bring some much needed responsive space observational capability for capturing transient events.

I think his most pertinent paragraph is his second one: We can’t judge schedule because we don’t know enough. I *suspect* that a 2028 launch is probably too optimistic unless they’ve done more work than we think (and maybe they have! We just don’t know.). I also *suspect* that 2035 seems excessively pessimistic. It is . . . hard to say. NASA had great expertise and experience in developing Roman and it also had a number of institutional constraints in how it had to do it. Schmidt really is the first out of the box on doing something like this, and our previous history of space telescope development, let alone pre-WW2 ground telescopes, may be difficult to apply at every point to what he is attempting. And how this plays out will do a lot to establish a template for how other, future privately funded major space telescopes will be built and operated. And if it takes a few more years to get deployed than he hopes and promises today, well, it’s still a massively useful step forward.

We live in a promising moment for space.

Richard M: By the way, I didn’t mean to sound like I was criticizing you in my earlier comment. I do find that too many readers throw out questions that just a few seconds of research, using the sources I ALWAYS link to, could have been answered. I provide those sources expressly to give people a chance to learn.

I didn’t intend to apply that to you.

Richard M: The use of a Time Allocation Committee is EXACTLY how things are done with Hubble, Webb, and most NASA telescopes. The astronomy community assembles a committee to review proposals and arrange time. It is however also carefully watched and supervised by other astronomy organizations to make sure it is fair.

NASA’s only real rules involve two limitations. One, data must be made fully public one year after observations (though even this is relaxed as the telescope ages). Two, if other nations or space agency contributed to the building of the telescope their astronomers get a guaranteed percentage of the observing time.

In the case of Hubble, that was 15% forever, even though Europe’s contribution involved an instrument that produced little science and was replaced by an early repair mission, and solar panels that were badly designed, caused the telescope to vibrate (ruining all images), and were replaced on the FIRST repair mission.

This private telescope will likely have its own rules, but based on the paper I suspect it will actually dole out time more fairly.

I admit that I skimmed a lot of the paper — it is a long read! — but in regards to this question, the one passage that struck me as relevant on this point was this one on page 25:

Lazuli is envisioned as a community-access observatory, with observing time expected to be available to the
global astronomical community through a merit-based, peer-reviewed Time Allocation Committee (TAC) process. The allocation framework is intended to favor ambitious, collaborative programs that make full use of Lazuli’s unique capabilities, including rapid response, broad wavelength coverage, and stable spectrophotometry, while still accommodating time-critical and disruptive opportunities. Details of the proposal process, allocation cadence, and operational implementation will be finalized as the observatory and its operations concept mature.

In broad strokes, this does seem to resemble how Hubble time is parceled out, and clearly they had Hubble (and other telescopes NASA runs) in mind. But since there are no fees, nor NASA regulations to bind them, and because they don’t spell out how this will work in any more detail here, I was just hesitant to go too far in assuming how closely they will follow NASA precedent.

If there’s something else I missed….well, I am happy to get to it.

Richard M: Based on the paper describing in detail the telescope and the plans (which I linked to and people should read before commenting) doling out observing time will likely following a system comparable to that used for Hubble and Webb. It is what the astronomy community is used to, and knows how to do.

“Richard M: I sometimes wonder that too, but Schmidt seems determined to turn the company around. Whether he’ll end up like Bezos and fund it with his own fortune, I can’t say, but he is interested in orbital data centers too, which if they pan out could supply the demand Relativity needs.”

I think . . . if there’s any sort of consensus in the industry about how many medium/heavy launchers the U.S./Western payload market can support over the next ten years, it’s probably about three of ’em. That market will lean heavily on NSSL payloads and LEO constellations. For the next three years (2026-28), those three providers will be SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin. After that, ULA’s steady fade will unfold, and Rocket Lab, Firefly/Northrop, Stoke, and Relativity will vie for whatever Musk and Bezos can’t nail down. (Ariane 6, GSLV and H3 will be active players, too, but with special and quite limited market niches that won’t really impact this question.)

But thinking has yet to crystallize about how AI data center networks in orbit might change this equation. I do not think anyone can answer that yet. But it is quite possible that it could open up viable slots for more launch providers. Still, I have to think Relativity ranks at the bottom of the list, so I think there’s going to need to be a whole lot of AI business for Relativity to make it, no matter how much Schmidt opens up his checkbook.

It is noteworthy that Eric Berger made a comment in the combox of his Ars Technica article about what this telescope would launch on. He asked directly about that, and the response was that Falcon 9’s payload fairing would accommodate Lazuli. So, right now at least, Schmidt and his colleagues seem to be thinking about launching this thing on a Falcon. Maybe that will change as other rockets reach the market. Stay tuned.

“Did he not want to use the other NRO mirror?”

The problem is twofold: a) The NRO would insist that its mirror be employed only in a telescope under the control of the government, for national security reasons, and b) actually working such a mirror into a space telescope is a ton of work and expense, to the point that some have questioned whether it was much of an advantage to NASA to use it in the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope . . . and anyway, the mirror was only a small part of Roman’s total expense, so it likely did not save NASA much money. Going “clean sheet” clearly seems to be a faster route anyway, even if the NRO *did* sign off on donating its mirror. Schmidt and his colleagues clearly want to get this thing into space as fast as possible. Quote: “The president of the philanthropic organization, Stuart Feldman, said he was not ready to disclose the telescope’s primary contractors yet. But he said a key goal of this telescope, and the other three projects, is to move quickly. Moving from a telescope concept to launching hardware in less than five years would be rapid indeed.”

“Richard M., you are correct on precedent of patrons funding research and telescopes. I remember Andrew Carnegie funded Mt.Wilson observatory, Griffith Observatory was funded by Griffith J. Griffith, and the Rockefeller Foundation with Palomar, etc…”

The list of privately funded telescopes is a long one! The 18th and 19th centuries featured loads of these, mainly in the British Empire and America: A.A. Common, Thomas Grubb, William Lassell, James Short, John D. Hooker, etc.

It looks like we may be entering another such age of privately funded major astronomy, no matter how much it appalls online progressives who wish such things to be exclusively in the purview of technocrats with invincible public sinecures who think just like they do.

Did he not want to use the other NRO mirror?
https://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/space-exploration/deep-space/nasa-hold-workshop-determine-donated-nro-telescopes/

He could have had a WFIRST clone.

Light buckets are better the wider they are.

“One tidbit I can’t find is how are they going to award observing time, and what’s the fee schedule; and how does that compare to government space scopes?”

Here is what Eric Berger wrote about that in his Ars Technica article:

The plan is to freely and openly share data from the telescopes. The Schmidts have emphasized that this is not a commercial project in any way. They will not be selling time on the telescopes. Rather, there will be an open competition for the best scientific ideas and observations to make.

“We are basically providing a gift to the global astronomical community,” Feldman said. “We wish the data to be openly available for all of the instruments.”

Beyond that, however, we do not have any details yet about how that competition will work, or exactly who will be running it.

One tidbit I can’t find is how are they going to award observing time, and what’s the fee schedule; and how does that compare to government space scopes?

We do not know what Terran R’s payload mass to lunar orbits is, though I tend to assume that given its LEO capability and the power of its upper stage, a 4,000kg payload is likely workable. Schmidt may well want it on a Terran R if possible. What I really wonder is whether Terran R will actually be operational by the time this telescope is ready. It seems like the most doubtful of the major medium/heavy lift rockets in development in America right now. Even if it makes it off a launch pad, I seriously wonder if it can survive in the launch market of the late 2020’s.

P.S. I clean forgot about Vulcan; even its lower end versions could get this to lunar orbit, too. But it will likely be more expensive than the other options, and even by 2028-30 it will likely still be working through its NSSL and Amazon backlogs….

The point is, though, access and cost of launch are simply not going to be a problem for Lazuli. That’s the great new world of launch we have now arriving, thanks to Elon Musk.

1. I mean, yeah, it’s Ars Technica, and more and more of the regular commenters even on Berger’s and Clark’s stories are bitter PMC BreadTube sorts who live on resentment. But there’s much worse out there; just check the Reddit threads on this story….

I do think this project represents a transitional development; it’s still dependent on the magnanimity of an ultra-rich patron, and without that there really isn’t a business case per se that could close for these telescopes. Not that there isn’t precedent for that kind of thing in the great pre-WW2 tradition of privately funded research; quite a lot of polar exploration was funded this way, and the payoff to the wealthy sponsors was most often naming legacies, i.e., “Find a big geographical feature you can name after me, old boy.” (The Boothia Peninsula and the Beardmore Glacier are prime examples.) But this *could* lead us to a point in the not-too-distant future where not only the cost and ease of launch but also the fabrication of space telescopes could come down to a point where someone *could* close a business case on deploying ’em.

2. Launch and lifespan particularly interested me, so I made a priority of looking into that. At 4,000kg, even a Falcon 9 could get this to a lunar resonant orbit, from what I can make out; obviously it could also launch on a Falcon Heavy, a New Glenn 7×2 or (of course) a Starship. If they can really achieve their 3-5 year development and fabrication cycle, then deployment by 2030 seems achievable, too. They are still mum on mission lifespan, even though the term is referenced repeatedly in the study paper; what *is* clear is that the orbit they have identified will not a limiting factor: “The orbit is long-term stable, requiring minimal station-keeping maneuvers, maintaining perigee above the geosynchronous belt for at least 100 years, and requiring no end-of-life disposal maneuvers.”

The comments on Berger’s story about this over at Ars Technica were, quite predictably, much less about astronomy than about various schemes for depriving the wealthy of their wealth – all in the “public interest” of course.

I hope Lazuli is only the first in a long series of privately-funded scientific programs; they are gradually increasing in number (Rocket Lab has their Venus mission, Blue Skies presently has their Mauve ultraviolet scope in orbit), and they’re likely to be both more affordable and ultimately more effective than government-driven science, which far too often is bent towards serving the whims of power.

Lazuli will have a larger mirror than Hubble and is NET 2028. As Schmidt is CEO of Relativity, I wonder if he’ll push for the company to launch the telescope, or if it’ll be bid out to whomever offers the best deal.

“The Hubble Space Telescope and The Visionaries Who Built It”
Explorer’s Club (June 2008)
(1:24:20)
https://archive.org/details/the-hubble-space-telescope-and-the-visionaries-who-built-it