Former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt is turning his fortune toward the stars, pledging to personally bankroll a new space telescope designed to take over where Hubble leaves off. Framed as part of a four‑instrument observatory network, his plan would give astronomers a privately funded “Hubble replacement” in orbit and three powerful new facilities on the ground. I see it as a test case for how far billionaire philanthropy can push frontier science beyond the limits of public budgets.
A tech titan’s bet on a four‑telescope future
At the center of the plan is a simple but audacious idea: that one wealthy technologist can underwrite an entire next‑generation observatory system, from design to operations. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy, have committed to funding a space telescope and three large ground‑based instruments through their philanthropic vehicle, Schmidt Sciences, positioning private money as the primary driver of this infrastructure rather than a supplement to government programs. According to Schmidt Sciences, Eric and Wendy Schmidt are backing a package that includes an orbital observatory meant to succeed Hubble and three complementary facilities on Earth, all coordinated as a single scientific platform rather than as isolated projects, with Schmidt Sciences described as an organization that also supports ocean work through a group that operates marine research vessels, which underscores how deeply their philanthropy is already embedded in big science.
Reporting on the initiative describes how this four‑part system is intended to function more like a networked observatory than a set of standalone instruments, with Eric Schmidt announcing an ambitious 4‑telescope observatory system that will share data and observing strategies across the space‑based and ground‑based components. The project outline notes that the space telescope will focus on high‑resolution imaging and spectroscopy, while the three ground observatories, including facilities such as the proposed Long‑baseline Array Spectroscopic Telescope (LFAST), will handle wide‑field surveys and rapid follow‑up of transient events, a division of labor that mirrors how modern astronomy increasingly relies on coordinated fleets of instruments rather than single heroic machines.
What a “Hubble replacement” really means
Calling any new observatory a “Hubble replacement” is a loaded phrase, and Schmidt’s team is leaning into that symbolism while trying to avoid overpromising. The original Hubble Space Telescope, often shortened to the Hubble Space Telescope or simply Hubble, has been in orbit since 1990 and has become synonymous with sharp visible‑light images of galaxies, nebulae, and planets. As the Canadian Space Agency notes in its comparison of the James Webb telescope vs Hubble, the Hubble Telescope was designed to be serviced and upgraded in orbit, which allowed NASA astronauts to keep the Hubble Space Telescope scientifically competitive for decades, but that era of shuttle servicing is over and the hardware is aging, so a successor in low Earth orbit that can deliver similar or better optical performance is increasingly urgent.
Schmidt’s orbital observatory is pitched as that successor, but it will not exist in a vacuum. The James Webb Space Telescope, often referred to as The James Webb Space Telescope or JWST, already serves as Hubble’s scientific heir in the infrared, with JWST optimized for long‑wavelength observations that can peer through dust and study the early universe and the characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets. A privately funded Hubble‑class telescope would instead focus on the shorter wavelengths where Hubble excelled, giving astronomers a sharper visible and ultraviolet eye to pair with JWST’s infrared view, and in my view that complementary role is what makes the “replacement” label more than just marketing.
Inside Schmidt’s privately funded space telescope
The most attention‑grabbing piece of the package is the orbital observatory itself, which Schmidt’s team has described as the first privately funded space‑based telescope of its kind. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Wendy unveiled the concept earlier this week as the Lazuli Space Telescope, a mission that would be financed outside the usual NASA or European Space Agency pipelines and operated as a community resource with open data policies. The plan is for Lazuli to deliver Hubble‑like resolution while using modern detectors and streamlined engineering, with the backers arguing that a leaner private procurement process can cut costs and timelines without sacrificing scientific capability, a claim that will only be tested once hardware starts to fly.
The funding structure is as notable as the hardware. On Wednesday evening, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Wendy framed their investment as a way to accelerate astronomy while also demonstrating a new model for how wealthy individuals can support shared scientific infrastructure, with Schmidt Sciences positioned as the steward that will contract with aerospace firms and manage long‑term operations. I see a clear attempt here to show that private capital can shoulder the full lifecycle of a flagship‑class mission, from design and launch to data archiving, rather than simply writing a check to a government agency, and that shift could ripple far beyond this one telescope if it works.
The three ground observatories that complete the system
While the space telescope grabs the headlines, the three ground‑based observatories are just as central to Schmidt’s vision. Schmidt Sciences has outlined a plan in which Eric and Wendy Schmidt will fund three large‑scale facilities on Earth, each tuned to a different slice of the electromagnetic spectrum and a different scientific niche, so that together they can feed targets and context to the orbital instrument. One of these is described as a wide‑field optical survey telescope, another as a high‑throughput spectroscopic facility, and a third as a radio array, with the idea that discoveries made from the ground can be rapidly handed off to the space telescope for detailed follow‑up, creating a virtuous cycle of detection and characterization.
The radio component in particular builds on existing work in fast‑transient astronomy, where instruments like the DSA have pioneered new approaches. The DSA Prototype and subsequent arrays such as the DSA‑10 and the DSA‑110 were earlier efforts that demonstrated many of the needed technologies, however the current plans call for a much larger installation that can localize brief radio flashes and other transient events with high precision and feed those coordinates to the optical and space‑based telescopes, with the DSA family expected to be operational in 2029 and serving as a technological and organizational template for Schmidt’s radio ambitions. In my reading, this is where the four‑telescope system becomes more than a branding exercise, because it leans on proven methods from the transient community and scales them up with philanthropic money.
Why private money is moving into Hubble’s lane
Schmidt’s move into orbital astronomy is not happening in a vacuum, it reflects a broader shift in how space science is funded and organized. Public agencies have poured enormous resources into observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope, but the long timelines and political risks of such projects have left gaps that private actors are increasingly eager to fill, especially in niches where a focused mission can deliver high impact without the full complexity of a multi‑agency flagship. The Canadian comparison of What the Webb Telescope is and how it relates to Hubble makes clear that Webb was never meant to replicate Hubble’s visible‑light imaging, and that leaves room for a privately funded optical telescope to step into that role while governments concentrate on more specialized missions.
At the same time, Schmidt is not acting alone, he is part of a growing cohort of tech billionaires who see telescopes as a natural extension of their interest in data and computation. Coverage of Backing space dreams has framed the initiative as Backing space dreams: Ex‑Google CEO Eric Schmidt funds four large‑scale telescopes, including a Hubble replacement, with the explicit goal of building instruments that can generate enormous data streams for the global research community while still maintaining high engineering standards. Another report on how Eric Schmidt announces ambitious 4‑telescope observatory system notes that the project is designed from the outset to support open collaboration, with Schmidt Sciences planning to invite universities and research institutes worldwide into the governance and data‑analysis pipelines, which, if it materializes, could help blunt concerns that a single billionaire is controlling access to a critical piece of scientific infrastructure.
For now, many of the technical and financial details remain to be nailed down, and some aspects of the plan are unverified based on available sources. What is clear is that Eric and Wendy Schmidt are willing to stake their names and resources on the idea that private philanthropy can deliver a Hubble‑class space telescope and a trio of cutting‑edge ground observatories, from the Lazuli Space Telescope in orbit to the Long‑baseline Array Spectroscopic Telescope (LFAST) and other facilities on Earth. If they succeed, the line between public and private astronomy will blur even further, and the next iconic deep‑space image that captures the public imagination may come not from a government agency but from a network of instruments built because one former Google CEO decided that replacing Hubble was too important to leave to politics alone.
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