Discover the telescope redefining small-satellite optics in the Big Ideas Lab podcast

CODA, an all-aluminum, compact optics system designed for a new class of low-cost, high-impact missions, launched into orbit for the first time aboard NASA’s Pandora mission in January 2026.

Built in partnership with Corning Incorporated, the telescope is an ambitious piece of precision engineering made from a material more commonly found in a hardware store.

The latest episode of the Big Ideas Lab podcast takes listeners inside the space program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to hear directly from the scientists and engineers who developed this new kind of space telescope. Listen on Apple or Spotify.

For centuries, optical systems have relied on glass mirrors that require extensive time and labor to grind and polish. Each component is typically built for a specific mission, making telescopes costly and time-consuming to produce.

“If a government customer went to the industrial base and says, ‘Hey, we want a telescope of about this half-meter aperture,’ you could easily expect prices back in the $20 to $40 million price point for quantity one or two,” said Shawn Higbee, LLNL mission manager for space sensing.

Before CODA, the high-cost and production timeline would be prohibitive for the emerging category of small-satellite space missions. Jordan Karburn, LLNL engineer and principal investigator for the CODA telescope, said that the idea for the telescope was to create a ‘good enough’ optical imaging instrument that could be proliferated and easily manufacturable to fill that gap.

“From a machining standpoint, aluminum is soft so it’s easy to machine into shape,” said Karburn. “You can do that quickly, which means you can kind of batch these out in quantities.”

NASA's Pandora mission, led by Goddard Space Flight Center and LLNL, provided an ideal testing ground for the novel design. As part of the NASA Pioneers Program, the small satellite operates under a strict cost cap of $20 million.

“It was like peanut butter and jelly,” said Karburn. “They needed project management, an engineering institution and a telescope. We were looking to expand our presence in helping lead missions and get flight for this telescope.”

After five years of development, CODA opened its eyes to the cosmos on Pandora for the first time. The mission is designed to study the atmospheres of approximately 20 exoplanets by distinguishing planetary signals from variations in the stars they orbit.

In the episode, Higbee emphasized how Pandora demonstrates the big idea of what makes CODA so special. The telescope enables discovery science on an unprecedented budget and timescale for small satellite missions.

Now that the technology is flight-tested, the team expects the impact of CODA to extend far beyond Pandora.

“CODA is really designed for multiple units to take these highly manufacturable systems and support constellations and architectures of five, ten, fifty, a thousand different satellites,” said Karburn. “Now we've shown as a proof of concept that yes, you actually can do one.”

The new episode of the Big Ideas Lab podcast, featuring the CODA telescope, is now available on Apple and Spotify.