National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Elon Musk’ SpaceX are set to launch the agency’s SPHEREx and PUNCH missions on March 3, 2025.
The $488 million mission will take off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission will provide an all-sky spectral survey. Over a two-year planned mission, the SPHEREx Observatory will collect data on more than 450 million galaxies along with more than 100 million stars in the Milky Way in order to explore the origins of the universe.
The SPHEREx observatory “sees” infrared light. Undetectable to the human eye, this range of wavelengths is ideal for studying stars and galaxies. Using a technique called spectroscopy, the telescope will measure the distance to cosmic objects and learn about their composition.
The telescope’s observations will focus on regions of the universe that are typically too distant or faint for conventional telescopes.
As part of NASA’s Launch Services Program, which connects space missions with appropriate commercial launch vehicles, SPHEREx will share its ride with the agency’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH mission), a constellation of four little satellites meant to study the sun.
The PUNCH mission will observe the Sun’s corona as it transitions into the solar wind. The PUNCH mission will use four suitcase-sized satellites to observe the Sun and its environment.
Working together, the four PUNCH satellites will create a combined field of view and map the region where the Sun’s corona (or outer atmosphere) transitions to the solar wind (the constant outflow of material from the Sun).
