NASA's First Probe Explorer Heads Into Preliminary Design

NASA announced Wednesday that PRIMA — the PRobe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics — is advancing to the next phase of development. It is the first mission in a new class of NASA astrophysics missions, called Probe Explorers, sitting within the agency's longstanding Explorers Program. The selection moves PRIMA into Phase B, the stage that advances preliminary design and technology development for the mission. The acronym doubles as the brief: a probe-class observatory built around far-infrared astrophysics, and the first test of whether the new class delivers.