Month: January 2025

NASA Spacecraft to Study Sun’s Corona Arrives for Final Launch Preparations

People offloading a black container with one of NASA's PUNCH satellites
Teams at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California offload several shipping containers protecting NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites on Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. PUNCH will make 3D observations of the Sun’s corona to learn how the mass and energy becomes solar wind. PUNCH, along with NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer), a space telescope, will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in late February 2025. Photo credit: USSF 30th Space Wing/Alex Valdez

The four small satellites of NASA’s PUNCH mission arrived Saturday, Jan. 18, at Astrotech Space Operations located at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California for final processing before launch. 

PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) is sharing a ride to space with NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) space telescope which is targeted to launch no earlier than the end of February, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg space Force Base.  

As part of final tests and checkouts, teams will test the solar arrays on each small satellite before they are mated to SPHEREx in preparation for encapsulation in Falcon 9’s payload fairings.

The PUNCH mission will deploy four suitcase-sized satellites  to observe the Sun and space with a combined field of view. Working together, the four PUNCH satellites will map out the region where the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, transitions to the solar wind, the constant outflow of material from the Sun.

PUNCH is led by Southwest Research Institute’s offices in San Antonio, Texas, and Boulder, Colorado. The mission is managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.  

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, manages the launch service for the missions. 

Follow mission milestones ahead of launch on the PUNCH blog and SPHEREx blog.

NASA’s SPHEREx Telescope Arrives for Final Launch Preparations

NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer), a space telescope, arrives at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025.
NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer), a space telescope, arrives at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. SPHEREx will enter a polar orbit around Earth and create a 3D map of the entire sky, gathering information about millions of galaxies for scientists to study what happened after the big bang, the history of galaxy evolution, and the origins of water in planetary systems in our galaxy. SPHEREx will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in late February 2025. Photo credit: USSF 30th Space Wing/Tony Vauclin

NASA’s SPHEREx spacecraft arrived Tuesday, Jan. 14, at Astrotech Space Operations located inside Vandenberg Space Force Base in California for final processing before launching on its two-year mission. 

The SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory is targeted to launch at the end of February on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4E. 

Following launch, SPHEREx will support NASA’s goals of discovering the secrets of the universe and searching for the ingredients for life elsewhere. The telescope will scan the sky in the infrared spectrum from a position in Earth orbit and complete four all-sky maps. These will allow scientists to learn about a variety of topics, including the origins of water on planets like Earth, to the physics that governed the universe less than one second after its birth.   

After final tests and checkouts, teams will mate SPHEREx and its rideshare PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) in preparation for encapsulation in the payload fairings of the Falcon 9 rocket.