The Origins Space Telescope's (Origins) significant improvement over the scientific capabilities of prior infrared missions is based on its cold telescope (4.5 K) combined with lownoise far-IR detectors and ultrastable mid-IR detectors. A small number of new technologies will enable Origins to approach the fundamental sensitivity limit imposed by the natural sky background and deliver groundbreaking science. This paper describes a robust plan to mature the Origins mission, enabling cryocooler technology from current state-of-the-art (SOA) to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5 by 2025 and to TRL 6 by mission Preliminary Design Review. Entry TRLs corresponding to today's SOA are 4 or 5, depending on the technology in question. © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.

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A survey is made which identifies more than 30 long life coolers for space applications covering a wide variety of thermodynamic cycles and confignration types. These coolers range in capacities from a few milliwatts to over 10 W at temperatures from 10 K to over 120 K and include single and multi-stage designs. The primary objectives of this study were to provide a hardware summary and performance comparison for potential space cryocooler users and to serve as an aid to the Air Force in determining future cryocooler development. Funding for these coolers are being provided by the Depamnent of Defense, NASA, and various other government agencies in the US. and abroad as well as by internal research and development monies from a number of companies throughout the world. The study identifies several existing fight qualified coolers and at least 12 programs which are l i l y to provide flight qualified units for cooling in the range of 10 to 150 K before the turn of the century. The survey presents an overview and status of the maturity of the various cryocoolers and uerfonnance comparisons are made at 35 K, 60 K, and 100 k.