In 2012, the National Reconnaissance Office gave NASA two powerful spy satellites it no longer needed. The agency spent several months figuring out what to do with them. And now, finally, work is underway to bring the WFIRST fleet into reality.
The mirror in the telescopes are the same size as the one in Hubble, but adaptive optics and a wide field imager will give WFIRST 100 times the capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope. It's set for launch around 2024, far after the 2018 launch of the more powerful James Webb Telescope, but WFIRST fills a niche: it will serve as an instrument for finding dark energy.
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