The goals of the Astrophysics Division are to understand how the universe works, understand how we got here and to address the question, are we alone? In this talk, Dr. Clampin will discuss the current goals of the Astrophysics Division, and its suite of current and future missions. He will also preview progress towards the 2020 National Academies (NAS) Decadal Survey including the key recommendation, the Habitable Worlds Observatory and NASA’s approach to its implementation. Dr. O’Meara will discuss the first steps towards implementation, the formation of a Science, Technology, Architecture Review Team (START) and Technical Analysis Group (TAG) for HWO. He will describe how these teams, along with a large cohort of volunteers are working to define the trade space that must be explored for HWO to meet its top science goals of surveying exoplanets for the signatures of life and performing transformational astrophysics.
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