Category: heliophysics

NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) mission controllers on Earth have received full acquisition of signal from the observatory, indicating the spacecraft is functioning nominally and is power positive. 

In the weeks ahead, the SPHEREx team will prepare the observatory for its survey operations – conducting calibrations, cooling the telescope to its designed operating temperature, and characterizing its optical performance in space. 

Over a two-year planned mission, SPHEREx will then 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, contributing to NASA Science’s key goals to discover the secrets of the universe and search for life elsewhere. 

The mission’s 3D all-sky map will help scientists answer big-picture questions about the universe. The mission will investigate a cosmic phenomenon called inflation that caused the universe to expand rapidly for a fraction of a second after the big bang, measure the collective glow created by galaxies near and far, including hidden galaxies that have not been individually observed, and search the Milky Way galaxy for hidden reservoirs of water, carbon dioxide, and other essential ingredients for life. 

The SPHEREx mission’s ability to scan large sections of the sky quickly and gather data on millions of objects complements the work of more targeted telescopes, like NASA’s Hubble and James Webb, and the observatory’s data will be freely available to scientists around the world, providing a new encyclopedia of information about hundreds of millions of cosmic objects. 

Deployment of the PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission’s four satellites has occurred. 

Following a 90-day commissioning period, the PUNCH mission is scheduled to conduct science for at least two years. 

NASA’s PUNCH will observe the Sun’s corona as it transitions into the solar wind, supporting NASA Science’s key goals by creating a broad awareness and understanding of how the Sun creates conditions that influence Earth and space, which is increasingly part of the human domain. 

By providing scientists with new information about how these potentially disruptive solar events form and evolve, data from PUNCH could lead to more accurate prediction about the arrival and impact of such events on Earth and for humanity’s robotic explorers in space.

Starting in about 20 minutes, PUNCH mission teams will start the process of acquiring signals from each of the four spacecraft to confirm they are functioning nominally. 

For continued updates on the PUNCH mission, visit the mission blog: 

https://blogs.nasa.gov/punch/

NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory has separated from the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage, on its way to begin its science mission from a sun-synchronous orbit about 404 miles (650 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface. 

In about 10 minutes, deployment of the PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission’s four satellites will begin. 

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage has successfully landed at Vandenberg Space Force Base’s Landing Zone 4 in California. Meanwhile, the engine in the Falcon 9’s second stage has cut off. 

The next milestone will be when the SPHEREx observatory separates from the rocket’s second stage in about 30 minutes.   

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket’s nine Merlin engines have finished their burn, and the first stage has separated from the rocket. As the second stage continues carrying SPHEREx and PUNCH to orbit, the rocket’s first stage will attempt a controlled landing at Vandenberg Space Force Base’s Landing Zone 4. 

Ignition, and liftoff! At 11:10 p.m. EDT (8:10 p.m. PDT), SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base’s Space Launch Complex 4 East, carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) missions. 

Stay here on the blog as we take you through some key flight milestones, coming up in the next couple of minutes. 

NASA Launch Manager Dr. Denton Gibson has just given the final “go” for launch of NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites!

The spacecraft is on internal power and configured for launch. In the next few moments, the rocket’s autonomous internal flight computers will take over the launch countdown, and the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket’s nine Merlin engines will roar to life, sending SPHEREx and PUNCH on the start of their journeys to scientific discovery. 

SpaceX confirms that fueling for the Falcon 9’s second stage carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) missions is underway at Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. 

The Falcon 9 Merlin engines — originally designed for recovery and reuse — use RP-1 and liquid oxygen as rocket propellants in a gas-generator power cycle. 

In several minutes, engine chill will begin on the rocket in preparation for launch, followed by the rocket and spacecraft transitioning to internal power. 

This will be NASA’s Launch Services Program 11th mission using a SpaceX rocket, and the program’s 106th end-to-end science mission. 

Liftoff is just under 10 minutes away. 

Launching as a rideshare with NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer), NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) is made up of four 140-pound small satellites, each about 1 x 2 x 3 feet in size, which will be synchronized to serve as a single “virtual instrument” that spans the whole PUNCH constellation. 

Three of the PUNCH satellites will each carry a Wide Field Imager, a heliospheric imager that reduces direct sunlight by over 16 orders of magnitude, which is like the ratio between the mass of a human and the mass of a cold virus. The Wide Field Imager will provide views from 18 to 180 solar radii (45 degrees) away from the Sun in the sky. The wide-field imaging optics are based on the design of Nagler eyepieces, which are known among observational astronomers for their clarity, low distortion, wide field, and achromatic focus. 

The fourth PUNCH satellite will carry the Narrow Field Imager, a coronagraph that blocks out the bright light from the Sun to better see details in the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona. The coronagraph will have a field of view from 6 to 32 solar radii in the sky, and it will view the corona in both polarized and unpolarized light. 

Every four minutes, each camera will collect three raw images through three different polarizing filters. In addition, each camera will take a clear (unpolarized) image every eight minutes, which will help calibrate the polarized images. The PUNCH mission will downlink data multiple times a day via ground-based antennas on Earth that are managed by the Swedish Space Corporation. Then, the data will be sent to the mission operations center at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, which will share it with the science operations center, also at SwRI. 

Moments ago, mission teams polled “go” to begin fueling the SpaceX Falcon 9 first-stage booster. 

We’re now just under 45 minutes from launch, and the rocket is being loaded with RP-1 (rocket grade kerosene). The rocket’s first stage also is being fueled with liquid oxygen, and a few minutes from now, fueling will begin for the second stage. 

NASA Science missions previously launched by SpaceX include Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer), Psyche, SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography), PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem), GOES-U (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites U), Europa Clipper, Jason 3, and TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). The company is also scheduled this year to launch TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites), IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe), Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, SWFO-L1 (Space Weather Follow On L1), Sentinel 6B, and TSIS-2 (Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor -2), and NASA’s upcoming infrared space telescope, the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope, by May 2027.