Schmidt Sciences Announces Four Privately Funded Telescopes Including First Independent Space Observatory

A philanthropy founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is building the first privately funded space telescope, promising 70% greater light-gathering power than Hubble.

Schmidt Sciences has secured private funding for four next-generation observatories, including Lazuli, a space-based telescope with a 3.1-meter mirror slated for launch no later than 2029.

The project director, Pete Klupar, described the timeline as "ridiculously low price" during a conference, though industry benchmarks for similar space telescope systems typically range between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion.

The Lazuli observatory will carry a wide-field imager, integral field spectrograph, and high-contrast coronagraph for exoplanet imaging.

Its lunar-resonant orbit—a trajectory that minimizes fuel consumption by leveraging gravitational interactions with the Moon—reduces operational costs compared to traditional geosynchronous or heliocentric orbits.

This design choice aligns with the philanthropy’s broader strategy to deploy cost-effective infrastructure for astrophysical research.

Complementing Lazuli are three ground-based systems: the Argus Array (1,200 small telescopes with 8-meter-class sensitivity), the Deep Synoptic Array (1,656 radio telescopes spanning 20x16 km), and LFAST (20 modules with 3.5-meter-class collecting area).

The Argus Array will enable sky surveys with 8,000 square degree field of view at second-long timescales, while the Deep Synoptic Array could double the known radio sources in its first 24 hours of operation.

Schmidt Sciences’ funding model emerged during a period of federal science budget cuts under the Trump administration.

Eric Schmidt’s tenure at Google (2001-2011) contextualizes the philanthropy’s shift toward astrophysics, though the organization maintains that political funding trends are not direct causal factors in its telescope development programs.

"We're going to do it in three years," Klupar stated, a timeline that contrasts with NASA’s typical multi-decade development cycles for flagship observatories. Independent assessments of the project’s technical feasibility have not yet been published in peer-reviewed journals.