The Habitable Exoplanet Observatory (HabEx) Mission Concept Study Final Report

The Habitable Exoplanet Observatory, or HabEx, has been designed to be the Great Observatory of the 2030s. For the first time in human history, technologies have matured sufficiently to enable an affordable space-based telescope mission capable of discovering and characterizing Earthlike planets orbiting nearby bright sunlike stars in order to search for signs of habitability and biosignatures. Such a mission can also be equipped with instrumentation that will enable broad and exciting general astrophysics and planetary science not possible from current or planned facilities. HabEx is a space telescope with unique imaging and multi-object spectroscopic capabilities at wavelengths ranging from ultraviolet (UV) to near-IR. These capabilities allow for a broad suite of compelling science that cuts across the entire NASA astrophysics portfolio. HabEx has three primary science goals: (1) Seek out nearby worlds and explore their habitability; (2) Map out nearby planetary systems and understand the diversity of the worlds they contain; (3) Enable new explorations of astrophysical systems from our own solar system to external galaxies by extending our reach in the UV through near-IR. This Great Observatory science will be selected through a competed GO program, and will account for about 50% of the HabEx primary mission. The preferred HabEx architecture is a 4m, monolithic, off-axis telescope that is diffraction-limited at 0.4 microns and is in an L2 orbit. HabEx employs two starlight suppression systems: a coronagraph and a starshade, each with their own dedicated instrument

The Habitable Exoplanet Observatory (HabEx) Mission Concept Study Final Report

The Habitable Exoplanet Observatory, or HabEx, has been designed to be the Great Observatory of the 2030s. For the first time in human history, technologies have matured sufficiently to enable an affordable space-based telescope mission capable of discovering and characterizing Earthlike planets orbiting nearby bright sunlike stars in order to search for signs of habitability and biosignatures. Such a mission can also be equipped with instrumentation that will enable broad and exciting general astrophysics and planetary science not possible from current or planned facilities. HabEx is a space telescope with unique imaging and multi-object spectroscopic capabilities at wavelengths ranging from ultraviolet (UV) to near-IR. These capabilities allow for a broad suite of compelling science that cuts across the entire NASA astrophysics portfolio. HabEx has three primary science goals: (1) Seek out nearby worlds and explore their habitability; (2) Map out nearby planetary systems and understand the diversity of the worlds they contain; (3) Enable new explorations of astrophysical systems from our own solar system to external galaxies by extending our reach in the UV through near-IR. This Great Observatory science will be selected through a competed GO program, and will account for about 50% of the HabEx primary mission. The preferred HabEx architecture is a 4m, monolithic, off-axis telescope that is diffraction-limited at 0.4 microns and is in an L2 orbit. HabEx employs two starlight suppression systems: a coronagraph and a starshade, each with their own dedicated instrument.Comment: Full report: 498 pages. Executive Summary: 14 pages. More information about HabEx can be found here: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/habex

Mapping of Rumex obtusifolius in nature conservation areas using very high resolution UAV imagery and deep learning

Funding Information: This study was supported by the SPECTORS project (143081), which is funded by the European cooperation program INTERREG Deutschland-Nederland. It was also partly funded by the AIPSE programme of Academy of Finland through the AI-CropPro project; decision number 315896 (Aalto University, Finland) and 316172 (Luke, Finland). We also would like to acknowledge the computational resources provided by the Aalto Science-IT project and Corinna Roers from Naturschutzzentrum in Kreis Kleve e.V. for labelling the data. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)Rumex obtusifolius (Rumex or broad leaved dock) is one of the most common weeds in grasslands. It spreads quickly, lowers the nutritional value of the grass, and is poisonous for livestock due to its oxalic acid content. Mapping it is important before any control treatment is applied. Current methods for mapping Rumex either involve manual work or the utilization of ground robots, which are not efficient in large fields. This study investigated the feasibility of using aerial images from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and deep learning to map Rumex in grasslands. Seven pre-trained CNN models were tested using transfer learning on UAV images acquired at 10 m, 15 m, and 30 m height. Based on Cross Validation results, MobileNet performed the best in detecting Rumex, with an F1-Score of 78.36% and an AUROC of 93.74%, at 10 m height. At 15 m, the detection performance was relatively lower (F1-score = 72.00%, AUROC = 88.67%), but the results showed that the performance can increase with more data. Experiments also showed that Rumex detection was dependent on the flight height since the algorithm was unable to detect the plants at 30 m height. The code and the datasets used in this work were released in an open access repository to contribute to the advances in grassland management using UAV technology.Peer reviewe