Tag: SPHEREx

SpaceX Launches NASA’s SPHEREx and PUNCH Missions

The New York Times reports, “Two NASA missions launched from the California coast and soared toward the stars late Tuesday night, overcoming a week of delays to get to orbit. Both aim to unravel mysteries about the universe — one by peering far from Earth, the other by looking closer to home. The rocket’s chief passenger is SPHEREx, a space telescope that will take images of the entire sky in more than a hundred colors that are invisible to the human eye. Accompanying the telescope is a suite of satellites known collectively as PUNCH, which will study the sun’s outer atmosphere and solar wind.”
Full Story (New York Times – Subscription Publication)

Video

SpaceX launches NASA’s SPHEREx and PUNCH missions (Launch at 58:01 mark)
(NASA; YouTube)

NASA’s SPHEREx Space Telescope Captures Its First Cosmic Images

SPACE reports, “On April 1, NASA announced its brand new infrared space telescope, SPHEREx, has officially opened its eyes to the cosmos as well. This first light, as it’s called, shows that all of the spacecraft’s systems are working just as expected. ‘Based on the images we are seeing, we can now say that the instrument team nailed it,’ Jamie Bock, SPHEREx’s principal investigator at Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said in a statement.”
Full Story (SPACE)

NASA to Launch Dual Missions on SpaceX Falcon 9 from California This Weekend

SPACE reports, “Sunday (March 2) is shaping up to be a delightful day for space explorers, as not one but two major NASA missions are expected to take to the skies — and interestingly, though the spacecraft associated with these missions are pretty different from one another, you might say they all have the same profession: cosmic cartography. Cartographer one, named PUNCH, will map the sun’s dynamics, while cartographer two, named SPHEREx, will kind of map the rest of the universe.”
Full Story (SPACE)