An illustration of what WFIRST will look like once launched. (credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)

Thanks to an infusion of Congressional funding, NASA has accelerated development of a telescope that could answer some of the most fundamental questions about both the universe and nearby exoplanets. At the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society on Monday, NASA’s Paul Hertz said the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) project will formally begin this year instead of 2017.

Hertz, who directs NASA’s astrophysics division, made the announcement after Congress increased funding for the new flagship telescope project to $ 90 million for fiscal year 2016, far above the president’s $ 16 million budget request. The telescope’s 2.4-meter mirror is designed to measure light from nearly 400 million galaxies and 2,600 exoplanets during its primary, six-year mission.

The WFIRST project emerged as a top priority for NASA after astronomers, in their last decadal survey in 2010, said that such a mission would answer some of their most important questions. The project has evolved over time, but it is now being designed to take advantage of a spy satellite donated to NASA by the National Reconnaissance Observatory in 2012. The mission could launch within about a decade.