NASA has selected the the UltraViolet EXplorer (UVEX), led by Caltech's Fiona Harrison, the Harold A. Rosen Professor of Physics and the Kent and Joyce Kresa Leadership Chair of the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, for further study. UVEX is one of four space mission proposals submitted to the agency's Explorers Program and selected for further study: two MIDEX (Medium Explorer) missions capped at $300 million (excluding launch) and two, smaller, missions of opportunity, capped at $80 million each. UVEX is one of the two MIDEX missions.

As NASA's Mars Perseverance rover explores Jezero Crater on the red planet, scientists back at at Caltech are eagerly launching into what is quite possibly humanity's best chance for finding ancient signs of extraterrestrial life to date.