PRIMA Spacecraft
PRIMA
The PRobe far-Infrared
Mission for Astrophysics

PRIMA is a cryogenically-cooled, far-infrared observatory concept for the community in the 2030 decade.

  1. PRIMA addresses all 3 science goals for a far-IR Probe from the Decadal Survey:
    1. Tracing the astrochemical signatures of planet formation
    2. Probing the co-evolution of galaxies and their supermassive black holes across cosmic time
    3. Measuring the formation and buildup of galaxies, heavy elements, and interstellar dust from the first galaxies to today
  2. We have the technology in hand to implement PRIMA. The only challenging thing in the far-infrared are the detectors and we have met the performance requirements.
    1. The Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KIDS) have exceeded our baseline sensitivity requirements across the far-infrared spectrum and are 100 times more sensitive than prior far-IR observatories.
    2. We have fabricated kilo-pixel subarrays for PRIMA which will be incorporated into focal planes which provide unprecedented spectral mapping speeds - some 100,000 times faster than prior far-IR observatories.
  3. PRIMA has broad science grasp with large community interest as demonstrated by the published GO science book featuring 76 cases from comets to cosmology (requiring 21,000 hours). These are impossible without a cold far-IR space telescope and PRIMA can do them all.

PRIMA includes both a sensitive wideband spectrometer FIRESS, and a multi-band spectrophotometric imager / polarimeter PRIMAger. Both instruments use detectors limited by the natural background, and PRIMA's sensitivity unlocks the potential of the far-IR waveband to advance astrophysics across a broad range of topics spanning from galaxy and dust evolution in the early universe to the formation of planets and planetary atmospheres.

  • FIRESS offers full-band instantaneous coverage from 24 to 235 μm in two modes. The low-res mode offers R~100 with long slits, while the high-resolution mode offers R up to 4,400 × (112 μm / λ) in smaller fields.
  • PRIMAger offers rapid R=10 hyperspectral imaging with continuous coverage from 25 to 84 μm, and imaging polarimetry in 4 bands from 90 to 235 μm.

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