NASA gets two military spy telescopes for astronomy - TheWashington Post.

On Wednesday, June 19, 2013 12:56:34 PM UTC-4, Me wrote:

On Jun 5, 1:37*pm, Me wrote:
....
"The bus is a combination of flight proven heritage components and

subsystems configured for the Large Optical Payload, with the

inclusion of electric propulsion (EP) for efficient delivery of the

observatory to Mars orbit. The spacecraft accommodates a 2000 kg

payload/instrument mass and 5500 W"


The 2000kg payload/instrument mass is the Large Optical Payload, which

is only part of the spacecraft total mass.

In any case, NASA will use the telescope only for astrophysics missions such as WFIRST, which is intended to do dark matter and galactic surveys.

Interestingly though WFIRST can also do searches for exoplanets:

Exoplanet capabilities of WFIRST-2.4
by Philip Horzempa
Monday, June 3, 2013
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2304/1

Some of the proposals to the Study on Applications of Large Space Optics(SALSO) workshop while focused on exoplanet searches could also do astrophysics research like WFIRST so might be permitted for the NRO scopes:

Search for Exo-Earths in the Habitable Zones of Nearby Stars.
http://salso.msfc.nasa.gov/lib/103Shao.pdf

OASIS: Optical All-sky Space Imaging Survey.
Astrophysics.
http://salso.msfc.nasa.gov/lib/109Surace.pdf

Starshade Earth Characterizer (SEC).
Astrophysics.
http://salso.msfc.nasa.gov/lib/127Kasdin.pdf

NEW WORLDS IMAGER.
Astrophysics.
http://salso.msfc.nasa.gov/lib/143Trauger.pdf

DIREx: Direct Imaging Reconnaissance of Exoplanets.
Astrophysics (astrobiology); Planetary Science.
http://salso.msfc.nasa.gov/lib/152Livengood.pdf

ExO: The Exoplanet Observatory.
Astrophysics.
http://salso.msfc.nasa.gov/lib/159Blackwood.pdf


Bob Clark