NASA Picks PUFFINS, a USD 20 Million Ultraviolet SmallSat Led by Bengaluru-Born Ramya Anche

19 October 2026National

NASA has selected PUFFINS - Polarimetry in the Ultraviolet to Find Features in INterStellar dust - a USD 20 million small-satellite mission under its Astrophysics Pioneers programme, with Bengaluru-born Ramya Anche of the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory as Principal Investigator. A roughly 10-inch telescope will use ultraviolet spectropolarimetry on about 70 stars to establish what the smallest interstellar dust grains - below about 50 nanometres, invisible to optical and infrared telescopes - are made of and how they clump into planets. Launch is targeted for around 2030, as a precursor to NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory.

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NASA's Astrophysics Pioneers programme funds small, low-cost astrophysics missions such as CubeSats, SmallSats and balloon payloads | Polarimetry measures the polarisation of light; interstellar dust grains align with magnetic fields and polarise the starlight passing through them | The Habitable Worlds Observatory is NASA's planned large ultraviolet-optical-infrared space telescope intended to search for signs of life on Earth-like exoplanets

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