NASA is ramping up its efforts to search for signs of life throughout the universe, and has directed companies to begin developing technologies that will help it do so using the space agency's Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) space telescope concept.

Seven companies have been awarded three-year, fixed-price contracts to explore the engineering challenges that need tackling in order to create what will be one of NASA's most powerful telescopes ever. The companies include Astroscale, BAE Systems Space and Mission Systems, Busek, L3Harris, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Zecoat.

Each will study ways to fulfill the hardware requirements for HWO, which is being designed to search for signs of life by looking at the light passing through the atmospheres of planets as they orbit stars hundreds and thousands of light-years away. In a Jan. 5 statement announcing the contract selectees, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman called the project "exactly the kind of bold, forward-leaning science that only NASA can undertake.”